Privacy rights breach claim by Tory Brexiteer thrown out by European court
The European Court of Human Rights has thrown out a case brought by a Tory former cabinet minister who once called for Britain to leave the Strasbourg institution.
Owen Paterson, a staunch Brexiteer, complained his right to privacy had been infringed during an investigation into claims he broke lobbying rules in 2021.
He quit as an MP while facing a 30-day suspension from the House of Commons over the claims.
The former environment secretary was found to have repeatedly lobbied on behalf of two companies which paid him more than £100,000 per year – Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods – in what the investigation report described as an “egregious case of paid advocacy”.
Boris Johnson, the prime minister at the time, tried to change the rules to stop the ban but was forced to U-turn in the face of public anger over the sleaze row, the first of a series of scandals that ultimately brought down his government.
In 2014, Mr Paterson called for the UK to “break free” from the “absurdity” of the European court, which is not part of the EU but the larger and older Council of Europe.
In the new case, he told the foreign court his “good reputation” was damaged and said the standards watchdog’s investigation had “not been ‘fair’ in many basic respects”.
The former MP for North Shropshire highlighted the “great stress” suffered by his family, and the court said Mr Paterson believed the investigation was a “contributing factor” to his wife’s suicide during the investigation.
He bemoaned the “cruel world of politics” when he resigned.
European judges in Strasbourg unanimously declared his application “inadmissible” in a decision announced on Thursday.
The privacy claim was “manifestly ill-founded”, the court said.
The allegations against Mr Paterson were already in the public domain before the investigation into him began, it added.
“There was a legitimate public interest for the public to know the outcome of the parliamentary investigation into a complaint about the applicant’s conduct as an MP,” the court said.
The Government, which Mr Paterson brought his case against, argued it was for “Parliament, and not the courts, to regulate the business of Parliament, including the conduct of MPs in the discharge of their parliamentary duties”.
The European Court of Human Rights also threw out a case brought by former Labour peer Lord Ahmed, who quit before he could be expelled from the Lords for sexual misconduct.
The shamed peer was jailed in February 2022 for separate sexual offences against two children in the 1970s.
From his cell, he claimed the Lords investigation had breached his right to privacy and had “devastating consequences for his private and family life”.
