Tuesday 12 May 2009

Conservative candidate loses High Court battle to stop LibDem leaflet revealing meeting attendance using Data Protecttion Act

The Register has the full story.

First Oxford Tory Christopher Quinton unsuccessfully sued the victorious Oxford LibDem councillor Robin Pierce for "publishing injurious falsehood" by revealing that this Tory candidate had attended certain planning meetings and then devining what his views are on certain planning issues. Then he went on to claim that since Mr. Pierce had published personal information about him that he had therefore breached the data protection act!

The judge said: "I decline, however, to interpret the statute in a way which results in absurdity. Plainly, it cannot have been the intention of the legislature to require electoral candidates to give their opponents advance warning each time reference is to be made to them in a document that happens to be computer generated."

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