Elspeth Christie Reid, PERSONALITY, CONFIDENTIALITY AND PRIVACY IN SCOTS LAW Edinburgh: W Green & Son (www.wgreen.co.uk), Scottish Universities Law Institute, 2010. li + 379 pp. ISBN 9780414016811. £120.
| Published date | 01 January 2013 |
| Author | Abbe E L Brown |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2013.0142 |
| Pages | 100-102 |
Personality, privacy and secrecy are highly topical in contemporary society; consider the Leveson enquiry, the grant of super-injunctions, and the relationships between celebrities, and the rest of us, and social networks. In this insightful, deeply researched and well written contribution, Elspeth Christie Reid, Professor of Scottish Private Law at the University of Edinburgh, reminds us that these do not raise entirely new legal questions and that there are (at least some) answers in Scots law.
Reid does this within the framework of a valuable comparative discussion, which refers in particular to France, Germany, the United States, South Africa, the European Court of Human Rights and England. Reid's work ranges from forms of protecting the physical (such as assault and trespass) to the intangible (such as reputation, image and the control of information). The book begins with an introduction, Part Two explores “Protection of the Person”, Part Three “Protection of Liberty”, Part Four “Defamation and Verbal Injury” and Part Five “Breach of Confidence and Protection of Privacy”. From a practical perspective, the book organises the long list of cases and legislation, by jurisdiction. This, and the structure of the book, makes immediately clear to the reader the breadth, depth and comparative relevance of Reid's work. This also poses a challenge for the reviewer, and the following identifies some highlights and points of particular interest.
The introduction draws from Roman law and
From the rest of the book, this reviewer enjoyed discussions of imprisonment without due cause (notably the decision of
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