Does Eady expect to be a busy man after the Imogen Thomas case? - The Guardian

Clearly, Mr Justice Eady reads the newspapers. When it comes to the Imogen Thomas case, Mr Justice Eady has plenty to say not just about the young woman and her relationship with the still unnamed premiership footballer – but about privacy law in general too.

There "can be no automatic priority accorded to freedom of speech" when it comes to privacy cases – which is a simple one line summary of UK law. And if that's not a red rag to a tabloid bull, what about this: there is rarely any "legitimate public interest" when it comes to "kiss and tell" cases.

The last point looks significant, although Eady doesn't express it in a very quotable way. He says he must determine whether there is a public interest in naming the footballer, and concludes "as in so many 'kiss and tell' cases it seems to me that the answer ... is not far to seek. Indeed, it was not even argued that publication would serve the public interest".

That looks like a green light for anybody trying to suppress a kiss and tell to try their luck in the courts; at the rate, now, of one or two injunctions a week, Eady expects to be a busy man.

The point about freedom of speech is not delicately expressed either, but is less surprising to those who know the law. There is no constitutional first amendment in this country, only a legal requirement to balance between the European convention's article 8 – the right to privacy – and article 10 – the right to free expression. Or as Eady himself notes: "No one convention right has such precedence over another."

Eady, too, takes aim at some his newspaper critics. He denies that judges are "introducing a law of privacy by the back door" arguing each cases proceeds according to a defined methodology and that each decision "must all depend on the particular facts of the case". In the Thomas case, the hotly denied allegations of blackmail are a relevant factor.

The judge also argues the way the Human Rights Act 1998 would work is hardly a great secret – and in a nice swipe to his critics even refers to the then presiding Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, who sang the praises of judges. Irvine told the Lords at the time of the bill's passage through parliament that "any privacy law developed by judges following the enactment would be a better law because they would have to balance and have regard to both article 8 and article 10".

What Eady doesn't do, though, is directly tackle the Twitter question – that is where the identity of people who have allegedly taken out privacy injunctions are circulating on the social network. Surely, in this situation, the injunctions are not valid – or at least that is what some would like to argue.

However, Eady does touch on the issue in another context noting that the Sun published an account of "a sexual relationship" that Thomas had with the unnamed footballer – before concluding that "nothwithstanding some publication" (ie in the Sun) there remains for the footballer "a reasonable expectation of some privacy".

On this thinking Twitter does not appear to count. Indeed, had the Sun (no doubt for its own reasons) named the footballer on the morning 14 April – before the initial injunction was taken out – then none of this saga would have happened. Instead, though, we've had a high court battle and pages and pages of journalism about "superinjunctions" – and now Eady's thinking on privacy law.

That said a high-profile legal drama with constitutional implications was probably far from Thomas's mind whenever she first met up with the footballer in question.