Australia’s courts are moving faster on privacy law than parliament

‘Judge Tran’s judgment should spur parliament into action, by enabling justice for Australians who suffer serious invasions of their privacy.’ Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Occasionally, judges are faced with a terrible dilemma. Before them stands an innocent victim, and yet the law doesn’t provide a clear way of achieving justice.

Judge My Anh Tran confronted this scenario in the Victorian county court. The woman who brought the case was dealing with an unimaginable trauma: her mother had tried to murder her father. The father had then written and spoken publicly about this, revealing highly sensitive information the daughter had disclosed in confidential counselling sessions and private emails with her father.