Retail tycoon Sir Philip Green has lost a high-profile legal case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), after attempting to challenge the UK’s use of parliamentary privilege following his public naming in the House of Lords over alleged misconduct.
The former Arcadia Group boss, who is now based in Monaco, brought the case in response to comments made by Lord Hain in 2018. The peer used parliamentary privilege to reveal that Green had secured a court injunction preventing The Daily Telegraph from publishing allegations against him — a move Green’s lawyers argued rendered his breach of confidence case against the newspaper “futile”.
Green claimed the lack of safeguards around the use of parliamentary privilege breached his rights to privacy and a fair trial under the European Convention on Human Rights. But the Strasbourg court rejected his claim, stating that decisions on parliamentary speech should remain a matter for national parliaments.
In its ruling, the ECHR said: “The court found that it should be left to the respondent state, and parliament in particular, to decide on the controls required to prevent parliamentary members from revealing information subject to privacy injunctions.
To find otherwise would run contrary to the principle of the autonomy of parliament, which had already considered and rejected the need for further controls.”
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