The Law of Privacy and the Media

"Say, for example, it used to be the law that a man could not be convicted of raping his wife. This dated back to lord-knows-when, 16th or 17th century, when the view was taken that by marrying the man she consented to sexual intercourse whenever he wanted. A rather peculiar view. That decision was later overturned by the House of Lords who said: Well no, current social mores have changed and it’s quite possible for a woman to say no to her husband. So judge-made law is good in its way, but one of the reasons Parliament never introduced privacy law was the sheer difficulty with trying to define what is private. The result is that the definition is being drawn up by judges as they go along and one of the big complaints is that a great deal of the law is being developed by a single judge."