Earlier this week, I had the great good fortune to attend an enjoyable lecture presented by the, Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin. It was

Blasphemy: Historical anachronism or modern crime?

by Professor David Nash, Department of History, Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is the author of Blasphemy in Modern Britain 1789-present (Ashgate Publishing, 1999 | Amazon) and Blasphemy in the Christian World (Oxford University Press, 2007 hbk; 2010 pbk | Amazon | cover left). His talk was in three parts: the historical context; the unhappy fit with current models and theories of human development; and the implications of taking blasphemy seriously again.

First, he used the historical context to illustrate the various reasons for longevity and adaptability of concepts of blasphemy. In ancient Greece, blasphemy consisted of speaking ill of the gods and of disturbing the peace. In early Christian dogma after the Council of Nicea in AD 325, it served to reinforce the virtues of orthodoxy. Medieval Christian Europe saw blasphemy as an element of heresy, but in the 13th century, blasphemy becomes decoupled from heresy, and it evolves into what Nash charaterised as the ‘passive blasphemy’ model, where the definition and enforcement of blasphemy is a matter for the State, seeking to eradicate states of mind and opinion that are dangerous to the community. For a member of the community to know that a blasphemy has taken place is to see a threat to the survival of the community; the individual is in peril from being in the presence of the blasphemer; and to permit it to go unpunished is to court divine retribution. Read the rest of this entry »

The Ombudsman yesterday published Who Cares? An Investigation into the Right to Nursing Home Care in Ireland. The gist of the Report is that the State is failing in its legal obligations to older people in need of nursing home care. Moreover, the Ombudsman was sharply critical of the refusal of the Government and State agencies to co-operate with her inquiry. However, in today’s Irish Times, the Minister for Health Mary Harney strongly rejected that criticism, saying the Attorney General had advised the that the Ombudsman was overstepping her mandate. On the other hand, an opposition spokesperson said the Report showed that the Government had failed older people, and Report has been very warmly welcomed by Age Action (a charity which promotes positive ageing and better policies and services for older people in Ireland):

Age Action is anxious that there is clarity about the eligibility and entitlements of older people, and that the rights of older people are protected … It is therefore timely that the Ombudsman’s investigation is published.

“It’s déjà vu all over again“. We have been here before. From 1976 to 2004, the State had invalidly charged many older people for care in public nursing homes. When this came to light, the Government attempted to legislate away any claims to recover such invalid charges. However, the Supreme Court struck that provision down on constitutional grounds, and no such limitation appeared in the subsequent legislation enacted in 2005 providing for the validity of such charges thereafter. Yesterday’s Report considers the related problem of older people who couldn’t access public nursing home care, and were forced to pay for private nursing home care instead. The whole issue is now substantially governed by the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act, 2009 (also here), which the Department says represents a Fair Deal for older people. But that is for the present and the future; it doesn’t address the problems in the past which are the focus of the yesterday’s Report.

The Report was formally submitted to the Dáil and Seanad yesterday in accordance with section 6(7) of the Ombudsman Act, 1980 (also here); and it concerns an investigation by the Ombudsman based on more than 1,000 individual complaints made, since 1985, on behalf of older people who were unable to get the long-term nursing home care to which they were entitled from their health boards or, latterly, the Health Service Executive (HSE). Read the rest of this entry »

The Littlewoods Ireland website proudly proclaims that it is Ireland’s leading online store. Since 1923, Littlewoods ran a mail- and phone-order catalogue sales business; and it is now the brand name of a successful internet retail sales company. Littlewoods are also the plaintiffs in an interesting case involving restitution of overpaid taxes. In Littlewoods Retail Ltd v HM Revenue and Customs [2010] EWHC 1071 (Ch) (19 May 2010), 15 claimants within the Littlewoods group of companies claimed compound interest amounting more than £1 billion on overpayments of VAT between 1973 and 2004. Subject to the outcome of a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), their claim failed. In [2010] EWHC 2771 (Ch) (04 November 2010) Vos J has now decided on the questions to be referred to the CJEU. Read the rest of this entry »

From the Free Speech Blog, an Index on Censorship cinema advert from 1986, featuring Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins as the title character in “The Censor”, a short play by the Czech writer, Ivan Kraus.

Fine Gael’s new policy document “Reinventing Government” will no doubt keep a lot of political debates (and perhaps even fires) burning during the long cold November nights, and I look forward to the heat thereby generated. Quick off the mark was Ninth Level Ireland with a summary of its proposals on universities. Glancing through it, I was also taken by two aspects of its list of “Quangos to be abolished” in Appendix 1, one inclusion and one omission. The inclusion is this:

Department of Justice and Law Reform

… Merge Censorship of Publications Board and Office of Film Censor and Irish Film Classification Office into single Censorship Office.

Merge Censorship of Publications Appeals Board and Censorship of Films Appeal Board into single Censorship Appeals Office. …

I can understand why a classification system for movies and computer games is felt to be necessary, but I am at a loss to understand the need for prior restraint upon print publications, and I would therefore achieve the desired savings simply by abolishing the Censorship of Publications Board and Censorship of Publications Appeals Board altogether. Read the rest of this entry »

From the Kristin Diane Lui, a graph on the effects of caffeine over the course of a (well, actually, my) day:

Dr Johnson defined gallimaufry as

1. A hoch-poch …
2. Any inconsistent or ridiculous medley. …

Here’s another hoch-poch, or hotch-potch (though, of course, not a hotchpot) of links relevant to the themes of this blog that have caught my eye over the last while. I’ll begin and end with some stories of censorship, and along the way I’ll mention open wifi, international perceptions of Ireland, typography, mobile phones, broadcasting, and the future of our universities.

First, as a supplement to my post on the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trials, Alan Travis in the Guardian argues that the failure of the Chatterley prosecution secured the liberty of literature in Britain over the past 50 years. By way of a similar supplement to my post on the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Akdas v Turkey 41056/04 (15 February 2010) that a Turkish ban on Apollinaire’s Les Onze Mille Verges infringed Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Guardian reports that Turkey is at it again: publisher Irfan Sanci is being prosecuted – under the same Turkish provisions that were found wanting in Akdas – for publishing a translation of another Apollinaire noverl, Les exploits d’un jeune Don Juan (The Exploits of a Young Don Juan). To add insult to this injury, the prosecution comes in the week before Sanci is to be bestowed with a special award by the Geneva-based International Publishers Association. Read the rest of this entry »

Section 28(1) of the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here) provides:

A person who claims to be the subject of a statement that he or she alleges is defamatory may apply to the Circuit Court for an order (in this Act referred to as a “declaratory order”) that the statement is false and defamatory of him or her.

Today, in an important decision, (that has been overshadowed by the coverage given to Doherty v Government of Ireland [2010] IEHC 369 (03 November 2010)), the first reserved judgment on the 2009 Act has been handed down on an application pursuant to this section (and another action seeking a declaration is pending):

Porn offender still capable of having character defamed, judge rules

A convicted porn user who had openly admitted his guilt and had sought psychiatric help is still capable of having his “residual” character defamed, a judge decided today.

Judge Joseph Matthews said that 34-year-old Barry Watters, of Hazelwood Avenue, Dundalk, Co Louth, had suffered a substantial loss of reputation through his guilt, conviction and imprisonment on pornographic charges. But he could not reasonably be said to be in the same category as a convicted prisoner who refused to accept his guilt, remained in denial and do absolutely nothing with no remorse, contrition, acceptance of wrong doing or show any intention to rehabilitate or not re-offend.

Judge Mathews told barrister Hugh Mohan, S.C., who appeared with James Mc Cullough, for Watters, that their client retained a residual reputation capable of being damaged by allegations suggested in an article in The Star on Sunday in September last. Watters had asked the Circuit Civil Court judge to direct the newspaper to publish an apology for stating he had formed “a seedy and weird relationship” in prison with Larry Murphy and referring to Watters as “a twisted pervert.” …

Judge Mathews said Mr Watters was entitled to a declaratory order that the article was defamatory and the court directed publication of a correction of the defamatory statement. The Act provided for the parties to agree the content of the correction and apology and if they were unable to do so the court could direct publication of the court’s judgment. He granted Mr Watters, who had not sought damages against The Star on Sunday, an order prohibiting the newspaper from further publishing the false and defamatory statements it had made.

The case was adjourned for a week to facilitate consideration of an appeal.

Read more here and here. Update: Irish Times.

This kind of action is exactly what the reforms in the Act were designed to achieve, a quick resolution without an application for damages. I look foward to reading the full text of the decision, and if anyone can supply it to me, I would be very grateful.