I wrote a little while ago about plans for most civil judges in England and Wales to cease wearing wigs, wing collars and bands, and to wear radically simplifed judicial gowns. The change was to come into effect from 1 January 2008, but it was postponed until 1 October because because an insufficient number of gowns had been made in time. The revised deadline was met, and from this month, judges in civil and family courts will wear the new dark blue gaberdine robe with velvet facings (right). The colour – gold, red or lilac – of the strips of cloth under the chin (which to my eye recall the eliminated tapes) indicate the level of judge. The designs, by Betty Jackson, raised some controversy when they were first announced, but they seem fine (if unexciting, and distinctly civilian rather than alien) to me. …
Author: Eoin
Dr Eoin O'Dell is a Fellow and Associate Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin.
The first Monday in October
NPR
CNN
New York Times here and here
Washington Post here and here.
Full size image here.
Back row (l to r): Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas (is it significant that he’s looking to his right?), Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito.
Front Row (l to r): Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens (is it significant that he’s looking a little uneasy?), Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, David Souter.
Let the games begin.…
The public library
I love libraries – from the wonder that is the New York Public Library through the workaday necessity of my university’s very fine library to the welcome of the local lending library – so the following story in the Irish Times caught my eye:
At the library
Few State services provide greater customer satisfaction than the public library. Some 14 million people visited one last year, a rise of one-sixth in five years, according to a national survey of users [Report | Summary | Press Release (all pdfs)] commissioned by the Library Council. …
Ireland has a long tradition of support for public libraries. Legislative backing began with the Public Libraries Act in 1855. In the early 20th century, American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie provided finance for local authorities to build 80 libraries. In 1947, the government adopted the principle of state aid for public libraries [in the Public Libraries Act, 1947]. In the past decade government and local authorities have made a substantial financial investment to improve facilities. …
According to the press release (pdf):
…Introducing the survey results, Norma McDermott, Director of the Library Council, paid tribute to library staff whose helpfulness scored a remarkable 97% satisfaction rate among library users.
UCD Legal Research Conference 2008: “Legal Processes Beyond the State”
The postgraduate students in the School of Law at University College Dublin will host their third annual Legal Research Conference for postgraduates on 5-6 December 2008.
The goal of the conference is to provide a forum for legal researchers at every level of postgraduate study to get together to discuss their research. It is an excellent initiative, and the last two conferences have been helpful and informative, as well as informal and fun. This year’s conference will revolve around the theme of
Legal Processes Beyond the State
Selected papers from last year’s conference appeared in the 2007 UCD Law Review; more details about the conference are available here; and a map of the UCD campus showing the Law School (pictured above left) is available here.…
NUI Maynooth vs TCD at the top of the Sunday Times university rankings
There are lots of university league tables out there; and the University of Edinburgh maintains an excellent page assessing these various leagues and rankings. For example, Times Higher Education (rankings), Newsweek (pdf), Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Wuhan University all produce annual tables of universities worldwide. Similarly, most of the UK newspapers produce tables of the UK’s universities (Guardian | Independent | Telegraph | Times). The Sunday Times annually produces just such a list but also has a parallel list of Irish universities. …
Journalists’ Sources – Lessons from Canada?
Not only will the Irish Supreme Court have the opportunity on the appeal in Mahon v Keena [2007] IEHC 348 (23 October 2007) (discussed here and here by Daithí) to discuss the constitutional protections, if any, for journalists’ sources, but I learn from The Court that the Supreme Court of Canada will also have a similar opportunity this term on the appeal in R v The National Post 2008 ONCA 139 (CanLII):
When does freedom of the press cede to investigating crime?: R. v. National Post
The Supreme Court is set to decide whether confidential sources for newspaper reporters are entitled to a claim of privilege similar to that of confidential police informants. The case of National Post v. R. … will settle a long-standing grey area in Canadian media law, but to get there, the SCC will be asked to mediate between the conflicting public interests of investigating crime on the one hand, and the freedom of the press on the other. …
The Canadian case turns on whether a journalist can assert privilege over a bank document received from a confidential source which disclosed highly incriminating evidence of a conflict of interest by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in a property scandal which the bank and M Chrétien claimed was fabricated.…
Privacy Headlines
From today’s Irish Independent Politicians, not public, want laws on privacy
Politicians are ‘crusading’ for stricter privacy laws despite just one-in-five formal complaints coming from the public. A survey of Irish journalism reveals that two thirds of privacy complaints against newspapers and broadcasters come from public figures, particularly politicians, with only one fifth from private citizens. …
From today’s Irish Times Privacy issue tops media complaints list, study shows
News reporting in the Irish media is virtually free of gratuitous racism, a symposium on ethics and journalism heard yesterday. Journalist Dr Simon Bourke told the conference at Dublin City University that no complaint of racism had ever been upheld by the Press Council or Broadcasting Complaints Commission … Dr Bourke presented to yesterday’s meeting his analysis of ethical controversies involving the media since 1973. Allegations of invasion of privacy emerged as the single largest issue, accounting for 71 of the 140 cases identified. …
From today’s Irish Times ‘We know dirt sells,’ says owner of photo agency
“We just want to make as much money as possible, we know dirt sells,” Ray Senior, owner of photo agency VIP Ireland, told the symposium. His agency pursues photographs of celebrities.
From the DCU news website yesterday Ethics and Journalism – symposium hosted by DCU School of Communications
…DCU’s School of Communications today hosted a symposium on the topic of ‘Ethics and Journalism’ which was attended by academics as well as print and broadcast journalists.
