Mail website readers get human rights protection

The Daily Mail's rabid online army of readers may have to rethink their position on the thorny issue of human rights law - usually regarded as a 'bad thing' and a glaring example of all that is wrong with a 'broken Britain' ruled by European bureaucrats.
 
However, it now seems that their freedom to pass judgment on others without ever having to reveal their own identity (or even reading beyond the headline) is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
 
The news comes from the High Court, where last week Jane Clift, who was the subject of a story in the paper in 2009, tried to force the Mail's publishers to reveal the identities of two commenters, so she could sue them for defamation.
 
However, the judge, Mr Justice Sharp, refused to grant the order, citing Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. He said that the commenters had a right to privacy and described their comments at the foot of the story on the website as nothing more than "pub talk".
 
The original Mail story revolved around a separate court case involving Clift and Slough Council, which placed her on a list of potentially dangerous people after she complained about a drunk in a park.
 
She was so outraged that she sued the council for libel and won. Her story was reported in the Mail, but Clift was angered by two comments posted on the paper's website and asked Martin Clarke, the publisher of the Daily Mail's websites, for the two people's details.
 
The ruling does not give Mail readers carte blanche to say what they like - even though they usually do anyway. Judge Sharp said his decision was based on the "context" of the comments. "It was disproportionate to grant the application," he ruled. ·