From cloning to privacy - the Human Rights Act stirs debate

Not all challenges under the Human Rights Act have been successful, however ingenious, and many of the more imaginative areas have still to be explored.l The Institute of Management said that under the Human Rights Act, managers risk legal action for invasion of privacy if they telephone employees at home, unless the contract specifically permits the intrusion.

It sent leaflets warning all its 89,000 members that 'even when an employee has indicated willingness to be called at home, managers should respect privacy and not make unnecessary or inappropriate calls'.

l An infertile couple wishing to conceive through cloning might use the Act to overturn the ban, according to Steven Wheatley, lecturer in law at Liverpool University law school.

The body responsible for the regulation of reproductive medicine in the UK - the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) - has said it will not issue a licence for any project with reproductive cloning as its aim.

The authority considers current safeguards 'wholly adequate to forbid human reproductive cloning'.

But the HFEA is a public authority and has to act in a manner compatible with the Human Rights Act.

It is possible that an infertile couple wishing to conceive through cloning might use the Act to overturn the ban.l Gavin Mellor, a murderer serving a life sentence, claimed that his right to respect for family life meant he should be able to donate sperm while in prison so his wife might become pregnant.

His application was dismissed by the High Court and the Court of Appeal, on the grounds that the right to family life did not specifically include artificial insemination where conjugal rights were properly denied.l Francis Wilkinson, chief constable of Gwent from 1997-99, has argued that sooner or later a challenge under article 8 of the convention - the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence - will lead to the legalisation of cannabis.Stephen Ward