Max Mosley's application to the European Court of Human Rights

Mosley v United Kingdom [2011] 53 E.H.R.R. 30; was a 2011 decision in the European Court of Human Rights regarding the right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. An application to the court was made by Max Mosley, former president of the FIA following his successful breach of confidence legal case against the News of the World (known as Mosley v News Group Newspapers [2008] EWHC 1777 (QB)). In the case the court unanimously rejected the proposition that Article 8 required member states to legislate to prevent newspapers printing stories regarding individual's private lives without first warning the individuals concerned, instead holding that it fell within each state's margin of appreciation to determine whether to legislate on this matter.

On 29 September 2008, Mosley filed an application to the Court claiming Articles 8 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights were breached by the United Kingdom failing to impose a legal duty on the News of the World to notify him in advance of publication of the story. This would allow him the opportunity to seek an interim injunction and thus prevent publication. If the Court decided that there was admissibility in the application, Mosley argued that the damages awarded to him by the high court were an insufficient remedy.

Mosley challenged the state of English privacy law by arguing for a doctrine of prior disclosure, which would require journalists to give at least two days' notice of intention to print stories about the misbehavior of a public figure so that a judge, rather than just an editor, could decide whether the story should be published. John Kampfner, the chief executive of the human rights group Index on Censorship, and author of Freedom for Sale, argued that a doctrine of prior disclosure would stifle investigative journalism and damage press freedom.

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