The thesis examines the scope of the right to respect for one's private life, family life, home and correspondence as set out in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It does so with reference 16 both the admissibility and merits decisions and judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It thus shows not only the range of interests that Article 8 covers in the light of the main ECHR principles of proportionality, margin of appreciation or that of living instrument, but also the interests and rights that fall outside Article 8's ambit. At the same time, it offers a clear picture of two basic procedural stages that each individual complaint has to go through in Strasbourg.

The thesis proposes a substantive moral, reconstructive theory of the practice of constitutional rights law as it has emerged in the last 60 years in various jurisdictions all over the world. In a nutshell, this practice is characterised by an extremely broad approach to the interests protected as prima facie rights combined with a far-reaching limitability of those rights under a balancing or proportionality approach. It thus stands in striking contrast to the conceptions of rights endorsed by philosophers who almost unanimously regard rights as protecting a limited range of very important interests and enjoying some special normative force. Having set out the project in Chapter One, the following three chapters develop a theory of the prima facie stage of rights. Chapter Two identifies the value of personal autonomy - positive freedom - as explaining better than its main rival, negative freedom, the core features of the practice. Chapter Three builds on this result and defends a particular conception of autonomy - the protected interests conception - as cohering best with the practice. This conception regards autonomy as including certain interests which can be ranked according to their importance for the self-conception of the agent. Chapter Four develops a theory of the prima facie stage of constitutional rights by arguing that constitutional rights protect comprehensively the autonomy interests of the right-holder. Chapters Five to Seven deal with the justification stage of rights. Chapter Five develops a theory of the justifiability and, related, the standard of judicial review, arguing that constitutional rights are violated when a policy fails to set up a reasonable - as opposed to the one correct - specification of the spheres of autonomy of equal citizens. Chapters Six and Seven draw on this result to provide theories of the main doctrinal tools at the justification stage, namely balancing and proportionality. Chapter Six proposes a theory of the resolution of conflicts of autonomy interests and thus clarifies the concept of balancing. Chapter Seven integrates the results of the previous chapters into a theory of proportionality, arguing that this principle provides lawyers with an attractive tool for the structured resolution of conflicts of autonomy interests and thus also constitutional rights cases.

Of the two thousand babies born each day in England and Wales, at least twenty will have an intersex condition (also known as Disorder of Sex Development). For some, the condition lies dormant for many years, if not for the remainder of their lives, whilst others are born with genital differences to such a degree that it is not possible at birth to inform parents whether their child is ‘male’ or ‘female’. This ‘devastating’ announcement commences a lifetime of potential discrimination for these children (and arguably for their parents) both in the healthcare environment and in society in general. It might have been thought that when the Equality Act 2010 was passed such discrimination would cease as, according to the summary of the Act, its two main purposes are to harmonise discrimination law and enhance legal mechanisms to allow equality for everyone. However, the category of 'intersex' is not included in the Act. This thesis aims to build on existing literature, and to investigate and analyse whether current English law prevents or promotes discrimination against the intersexed in the healthcare environment in England today. It further endeavours to propose suitable amendments to current law where such discrimination is identified. Previous literature has indicated that discrimination may arise as a result of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), selective abortions of the intersexed fetus, and ‘normalising’ genital operations of the intersexed child. Further, activists have noted that the withholding of medical records is detrimental to the person concerned. However, to date there has been sparsity of literature to address current English law in these areas. Results of investigations carried out for this thesis indicate that in some aspects, for example access to medical records, current English law supports the rights of the intersexed patient. Research also indicates that in regard to selective abortions current law can be justified. However, in other areas, notably PGD and genital modification operations, English law can be said to discriminate against the intersexed, whilst for neonatal testing, current healthcare policies and procedures can be considered discriminatory. Such provisions require reconsideration. In this respect, legal amendments are proposed to assist in overcoming discrimination. This includes an amendment to the Equality Act itself.