British cofor Tiwariurt primer

London, Dec. 25: N.D. Tiwari, facing another sex scandal, would probably receive a sympathetic hearing from the British courts if he were to claim his privacy had been breached.
But the case would not be straightforward.
The courts are increasingly taking the view that what is “of interest to the public” — and the sexual activities of a politician would certainly fall into that category — is not necessarily “in the public interest”. The problem for Tiwari is that he has been in the spotlight before in a paternity suit.
The media could enter a defence that a politician repeatedly in trouble for his sexual dalliances was “not fit for public office”, and that to expose his activities was not only of public interest but also “in the public interest”.
Since British judges rely heavily on previous judgments, Tiwari’s lawyers would probably refer to the recent case of world motorsport boss Max Mosley, who won a legal action against a UK Sunday newspaper over claims that an orgy he took part in had Nazi overtones.
The high court had ruled in July this year that the News of the World did breach Mosley’s privacy, awarding him £60,000 in damages. Mr Justice Eady said Mosley could expect privacy for consensual “sexual activities (albeit unconventional)”.
Mosley admitted a sadomasochistic sex session with five prostitutes, but denied it had a Nazi theme. His father was the 1930s fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. The paper’s report was based on a secret video from one of the women who took part in the sex session at a London flat.
At the high court, Mr Justice Eady said there was “no evidence that the gathering… was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behaviour or adoption of any of its attitudes”.
He ruled that there was “no public interest or other justification for the clandestine recording, for the publication of the resulting information and still photographs, or for the placing of the video extracts on the News of the World website — all of this on a massive scale”.
The newspaper faced an additional bill of around £850,000 after the judge ordered it to pay Mosley’s legal fees, estimated at £450,000, on top of its own costs of £400,000.
Outside the high court, Mosley said the judgment “shows that they (the newspaper) had no right to go into private premises and take pictures and film of adults engaged in activities which are no one’s business but those of the people concerned”.
News of the World editor Colin Myler said: “Taking part in depraved and brutal S&M (sadomasochism) orgies on a regular basis does not, in our opinion, constitute the fit and proper behaviour to be expected of someone in his hugely influential position.”
A similar argument would be used against Tiwari, especially since he is a governor.
Myler said the paper believed its reports were “legitimate and lawful and, moreover, that publication was justified by the public interest in exposing Mr Mosley’s serious impropriety”.
Legal analyst Joshua Rozenberg said the court ruling was a “warning” to journalists, but Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre attacked Mr Justice Eady for bringing in a law on privacy “through the back door
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