ZXC v Bloomberg LP

What the court held

The Supreme Court held that in general a person under criminal investigation but not charged has a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of information about that investigation. Article 8 protection extended to the pre-charge stage, subject to the case-by-case balance with Article 10.

Key rulings

• Reasonable expectation of privacy attaches to being under criminal investigation before charge.
• Presumption may be displaced by strong public-interest justification, but the starting point favours privacy.
• Detailed reasoning required to name a pre-charge suspect.

Topics

Related cases (citator)

How this case connects to others in the landmark set — lines of authority, statutory supersession, and companion rulings.

• Campbell v MGN Ltd [2004] UKHL 22

  Applied misuse of private information in a criminal-investigation context.

• Khuja v Times Newspapers Ltd [2017] UKSC 49

  Both weigh privacy / anonymity for those suspected but not charged.

Acts cited

• Human Rights Act 1998

Authoritative source