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Jul 22 2009

Blasphemy provisions clash with Constitution

Posted by Eoin in Blasphemy, tags: ,

Cover of Levy's book on Blasphemy, via the publishers' website.In today’s Irish Times, a piece by yours truly under the above headline:

Blasphemy provisions clash with Constitution

The President has very few unconstrained powers, and the Council of State is convened only rarely, but this evening they will all move centre stage, when the Council convenes to advise the President whether to refer two controversial Bills to the Supreme Court. Whatever she does about the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill, 2009, she should certainly refer the blasphemy provisions of the Defamation Bill, 2006 …

Read all about it here (it’s a development of my argument here).

The cases I mention in the piece are:

  • the case against Gay News magazine (wikipedia) is Whitehouse v Lemon [1979] AC 617 (HL) (wikipedia);
  • the case against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses is R v Metropolitan Magistrate ex p Choudhury [1991] 1 QB 429;
  • the case against Jerry Springer – The Opera is R (on the application of Green) v The City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court [2007] EWHC 2785 (Admin) (05 December 2007);
  • the relevant decisions of the European Court of Human Rights include Wingrove v UK 17419/90 [1996] ECHR 60 (25 November 1996), and Klein v Slovakia 72208/01 [2006] ECHR 909 (31 October 2006); and
  • the case against the Sunday Independent for publishing the divorce referendum cartoon is Corway v Independent Newspapers [1999] 4 IR 485; [2000] 1 ILRM 426; [1999] IESC 5 (30 July 1999).

    • This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 am and is filed under Blasphemy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    2 Responses to “Blasphemy provisions clash with Constitution”
    1. Irish Left Review · Eoin O’Dell | Blasphemy Provisions Should be Referred to the Supreme Court says:
      22 July 2009 at 12:05 pm

      [...] O’Dell, TCD law lecturer and blogger, who comments regularly on defamation, argues that the Council of State, which convenes tonight to [...]

    2. cearta.ie » President’s decision tomorrow says:
      22 July 2009 at 11:00 pm

      [...] « Blasphemy provisions clash with Constitution Jul 22 2009 [...]

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