Christopher Meyer - The Press Complaints Commission (PCC)

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC)

Meyer was appointed chairman of the UK press's self-regulating body in March 2003.

During his tenure from 2003 to 2009, Meyer introduced a number of reforms to enhance the profile, independence and credibility of the Commission. These included increasing the majority of independent Commissioners, introducing independent scrutiny of the PCC's internal processes and decision-making, instituting PCC "away-days" twice a year in the cities and towns of the UK and extending the PCC's remit to online editions of newspapers, including audio-visual material. This led to a significant increase in public use of the PCC, with complaints about the press rising from 2630 in 2002 to 4698 by the time Meyer retired as Chairman. He was also responsible for developing the PCC's pre-publication activity, including its anti-harassment service, which proved highly effective in protecting people from the unwanted attention of media scrums.

Meyer's tenure coincided with the gaoling in 2007 of the News of the World reporter, Clive Goodman, and the enquiry agent, Glenn Mulcaire, for phone-hacking offences under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. This prompted the resignation of the News of the World's editor, Andy Coulson. Later, as the phone-hacking scandal spread, the PCC, and Meyer himself, were criticised for not having brought those responsible to account. But the Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, pointed out in a lecture to the Human Rights Law Conference on 19 October 2011 that "To criticise the PCC for failing to exercise powers it does not have is rather like criticising a judge who passes what appears to be a lenient sentence, when his power to pass a longer sentence is curtailed." Meyer had himself reminded the Leveson Inquiry in his witness statement, submitted on 14 September 2011, and at his appearance before the Inquiry on 31 January 2012 that phone-hacking was a crime under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and that it was not in the remit of the PCC either to apply the criminal law or to carry out investigations that rightfully belonged to the police.