Sir Philip Green loses parliamentary privilege case against UK at ECHR

The retail tycoon Sir Philip Green has lost a legal action against the UK government at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The case was launched after Lord Hain publicly named Green in the House of Lords in 2018 as the businessman who had obtained an interim injunction against The Telegraph newspaper to prevent the publication of misconduct allegations against him.

Green argued that the lack of controls on parliamentary privilege, which allows members of Parliament to speak freely without fear of legal action, breached his right to privacy and rendered his breach of confidence claim against the newspaper pointless. Green's lawyers argued that the UK, as a member of the ECHR, should ensure that parliamentary privilege is not used to circumvent court orders.

However, the ECHR ruled against Green, stating 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." The court found that intervening in this way would contradict the "principle of parliamentary autonomy, which had already considered and rejected the need for further controls."