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The Daily Mail has been gifted a partial victory by its number one enemy, the European Court of Human Rights, in a case against the Government over high legal costs in defamation and privacy cases.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg - long a target of outraged front-pages from the Mail - sided this Tuesday with Mail owner Associated Newspapers (DMGT) in claiming its free speech rights had been violated.

Associated Newspapers Limited, the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, had been obliged to pay extensive costs incurred by claimants who had successfully sued it in privacy and defamation proceedings, following articles the paper published in print or online in 2017 and 2019.

One of the claimants had entered into a so-called conditional fee arrangement (CFA) with his legal representatives, and both had also taken out "after-the-event" (ATE) insurance which can result in significant cost demands on the losing side, for example following drawn-out and costly libel cases.

As Press Gazette reported: "Associated complained about CFAs in relation to a privacy case brought by a man named by Mail Online after he was arrested, but never charged, on suspicion of involvement in the 2017 Manchester Arena terror attack…

"Associated was ordered to pay the man £83,000 in damages plus costs of £822,421.79, which included £245,775 plus VAT for the success fee agreed between the man and his lawyer."

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In the 2019 defamation case which the Mail also lost, owner Associated Newspapers Ltd had been liable not only for the claimants' core legal fees, but also for fee uplifts, including the "success fee" as part of the conditional fee arrangement, and for their ATE insurance premiums.

In a double irony, or perhaps hypocrisy, those schemes the Mail complained about to the Court have effectively replaced legal aid for large numbers of relatively low-income (but not completely impoverished) people.

Legal aid was drastically cut back, amid cheering from the Daily Mail, under the last Conservative Government, bolstering the no-win-no-fee sector and the hefty premiums to pay for it.

The paper had claimed its freedom of expression (Article 10 of the ECHR) had been infringed by having to pay the success fees to claimants' lawyers in defamation and privacy cases. The Court ruled in favour of the publisher on this front.

But in a split verdict, the European Court found no violation regarding the requirement to pay "after-the-event" (ATE) insurance premiums.

Human Rights Groups Rejoice

Human rights groups, so frequently at the end of attacks as "lefty lawyers" or "woke activists" by the Mail, look forward to the paper throwing its weight behind the ECHR.

Sam Grant, Director of External Relations at Liberty told Byline Times: "For over 70 years, the European Convention of Human Rights has defended us all; protecting, among others, LGBT rights, religious freedoms, and today the Daily Mail.

"No matter our view on the ECHR, we all benefit from the rights it enshrines, which is why we must ensure that it remains an integral part of UK law."

Tom Southerden Legal Programme Director for Amnesty, added: "We can only hope today's success at the European Court of Human Rights might make the Mail reflect on its tendency towards rights bashing.

"Human rights have to apply to all of us equally in order to have any force at all. Even, and perhaps especially, those who might be less than wholly sympathetic."

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