L v Law Society: CA 2010

Sir Anthony Clarke MR rejected a submission that the protection afforded by the 1974 Act renders details of spent convictions confidential, and also a submission that the proceedings should be held in private to protect the appellant against disclosure of his ‘private life’ within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention. As to confidentiality, agreeing with Maurice Kay J in Pearson, he held that the Act: ‘ . . does not attempt to go beyond the grant of those limited privileges to provide a right of confidentiality in respect of spent convictions. While the 1974 Act in some respects may place an individual with spent convictions in the same position as someone with no convictions, it does not do so by rendering the convictions confidential; it does so simply by putting in place a regime which protects an individual from being prejudiced by the existence of such convictions.’

Judges:

Sir Anthony Clarke MR

Citations:

[2010] EWCA Civ 811

Statutes:

Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

CitedNT 1 and NT 2 v Google Llc QBD 13-Apr-2018
Right to be Forgotten is not absolute
The two claimants separately had criminal convictions from years before. They objected to the defendant indexing third party web pages which included personal data in the form of information about those convictions, which were now spent. The claims . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Information, Human Rights, Legal Professions

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.608658