Author: Eoin

Dr Eoin O'Dell is a Fellow and Associate Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin.

Defamation Bill passed by the Dáil

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| Blasphemy, Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006

A guillotine, via The Guillotine Headquarters websiteAs recently prefigured on this blog, the Government has indeed used the legislative guillotine to force through their final amendments to the Defamation Bill, 2006. According to the RTÉ news website:

Libel law revisions pass the Dáil

The legislation to revise the country’s libel laws has been passed in the Dáil and will now go to the Seanad. …

Update (9 July 2009): Dáil debate focuses on Defamation Bill (Irish Times); Libel and blasphemy bill passed by the Dail (Irish Independent); Dáil Debate (Vol 687, No 4; 8 July 2009).…

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Criminal lawyers on justice and injustice

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| General
'Injustice by Giotto
Injustice
by Giotto
via Wikipedia

I have heard it said that when you get two lawyers in a room, you get at least three opinions. This is, unfortunately, usually true. It is therefore all the more impressive when you can get 133 of them to agree on something. Here’s a letter in today’s Irish Times on the impact of the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill, 2009, which is to be subject to a legislative guillotine before the Dáil rises next week:

Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill

Madam, – We the undersigned are lawyers whose practices include the area of criminal law. Many of us both prosecute and defend. We see at first hand the effect of crime, particularly violent crime on individuals and communities in our society and we also have a close up view of the criminal justice system with its strengths and its frailties.

We are extremely concerned then about the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 which, it appears, is likely to become law this week. It has been introduced without any research to support its desirability and without canvassing expert opinion or inviting contribution from interested parties on the issues. It appears now that it will be passed without proper debate in the Dáil because such debate has been guillotined by the Government.

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Sympathy for the devil?

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| General

No, it’s not about a Rolling Stones song, or a Jean-Luc Goddard movie, but instead, in another sign of the times, it’s a cartoon about lawyers from the wonderful Non Sequitur cartoon strip:

Non Sequitur cartoon about lawyers, via the Go Comics website

The box on the top left corner says: Why unemployed lawyers have trouble getting sympathy.

The unemployed lawyer’s placard says: Will bill you for my time watching you walk by

Click on the image or here for the larger, more legible, original.…

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Privacy. The Lost Right

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| Privacy

Cover of Mills' The title of this post is the provocative title of a recently published book from Oxford University Press written by Jon L Mills (on the author, see University of Florida Levin College of Law | University of Miami School of Law; on the book, see Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Google Books | OUP; if you want to judge it by its cover, that’s it on the right left).

The OUP blurb says that the book:

  • Provides a straightforward and concise history of the regulations and policies governing our personal privacy
  • Reviews the full range of privacy issues that affect United States citizens, including identity theft, government surveillance, tabloid journalism, and video surveillance in public places
  • Considers the legal tools available to individuals who wish to protect their personal privacy

The disturbing reality of contemporary life is that technology has laid bare the private facts of most people’s lives. Email, cell phone calls, and individual purchasing habits are no longer secret. Individuals may be discussed on a blog, victimized by an inaccurate credit report, or have their email read by an employer or government agency without their knowledge. Government policy, mass media, and modern technology pose new challenges to privacy rights, while the law struggles to keep up with the rapid changes.

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Mobile phones in class

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| General, Phones in class

By way of update to my recent post about laptops in class, here’s Torill Mortensen thinking with her fingers about recent research on the consequences of mobile phones going off in class:

Why we don’t like cell-phones in class

… Apart from being annoying, distracting and rude, ringing cellphones makes students forget what they learned before and during the ringing of the phone. If the ring tone is a popular, well-known piece of music, this is even worse.

For my classes, I have this rule which has these consequences; in my view, those who visit such consequences upon offending and offensive mobile phones are not criminals but heroes!

Torill concludes with excellent advice for students in class:

So: That mute button? Use it!

Hear hear!…

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Dress codes – who’ll be the judge?

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| Court dress, Irish Law, judges

Judge John Deed, from the BBC websiteI have already written on this blog about reforms to judicial dress in England and Wales (the image on the right is a well-known example of the previous judicial court dress). Now comes news that Ireland may follow suit. From today’s Irish Independent (with added links):

Fashion guru revamps judges’ robes

Fashion guru Louise Kennedy has been commissioned by the Chief Justice to create an unprecedented new range of designer robes for the country’s judges. Samples of the robes were unveiled last week by John Murray, the Chief Justice, during a judicial training day in Adare, Co Limerick. … it is feared that the cost of the inaugural judicial makeover could lead to the project, the brainchild of Judge Murray, being put on hold until the public finances improve. …

The last effort to change judicial attire occurred in the mid- 1920s when Hugh Kennedy — the first Chief Justice of the Irish Free State — sought to break from away from the English tradition by introducing an exclusive Irish range of robes. According to Judge Kennedy’s papers, there is correspondence on the planned design of judicial robes between Kennedy, William Butler Yeats and printmaker Charles Shannon. But the project did not attract political approval.

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When is a guillotine a good thing? When it’s used on a Defamation Bill?

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| Blasphemy, Copyright, Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006

A guillotine, via The Guillotine Headquarters websiteIn this morning’s Irish Times:

Defamation Bill to pass within weeks

The Bill to reform Ireland’s libel laws is likely to be enacted within a fortnight, three years after it was published. The Defamation Bill was introduced by then minister for justice Michael McDowell in 2006 to repeal the existing legislation which dates from 1961.

The original government decision to approve the drafting of the new Bill was made as far back as June 2005 … the remaining stages of the Bill will be taken in the Dáil and Seanad over the next two weeks, with the Bill expected to complete its passage through the Oireachtas on July 10th, the last sitting day before the summer recess.

After dragging their heels for so long, this is to be achieved by means of a legislative guillotine:

Guillotine allows ‘one minute 20 seconds’ per amendment

A guillotine on housing legislation allowed just one minute and 20 seconds for each of the 170 amendments to be dealt with, Labour whip Emmet Stagg told the Dáil in repeated criticism of end-of-term deadlines. …

A further sotry in the same edition of the Irish Times lists Bills which are likely to be guillotined, including the Defamation Bill:

Coalition to ‘guillotine’ debate on Bills

The Government will “guillotine” debate on at least 17 Bills in the last three weeks of the Dáil before the summer recess, Opposition parties have claimed.

…

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