Eoin – Page 156 – cearta.ie

Three free speech stories in the BBC News and Guardian websites caught my eye this morning. Indeed, the first two were almost side by side on both sites. In the first, there is widespread dismay at the arrest of a British school teacher in the Sudan accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad (BBC | Guardian). In the second, protests are expected later outside the Oxford Union (see also wikipedia) when Nick Griffin (see also wikipedia), Chairman of the British National Party, and David Irving (see also BBC | Holocaust History | Kizkor | wikipedia), Holocaust denier, arrive for a forum on The Limits of Free Speech (BBC | Guardian).

There is an inconsistency here; and the incongruous but serendipitous placement of these two stories side by side demonstrates it: we cannot be outraged both at the arrest of the teacher and at the speech of Nick Griffin and David Irving. Society cannot have it both ways, it is not free to pick and choose which speech to support. Those in favour of speech must afford it both to the teacher and to Griffin and Irving.…

Restitution Roundtable – 14 December 2007

18 November, 200718 November, 2007

| No Comments

| Restitution

On 14 December 2007, the Frances Lewis Law Center, of the School of Law, University of Washington and Lee, Lexington, Virginia, USA, in association with the University of Washington and Lee Law Review, will host

A Roundtable on Restitution and Unjust Enrichment in North America.

The main point underpinning the Roundtable is to get North American (ie, Canadian and US) Restitution scholars, practitioners, judges and others with an interest in the subject, together in one place, talking about current legal issues in the Law of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment. There seem to be too few opportunities to do so, except on the margins of other more generally focussed events. The hope is that this informal Roundtable will provide just such a context. Given that the American Law Institute‘s current project on a Restatement (Third) on Restitution and Unjust Enrichment is at a crucial stage, and that the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent case law is proving controversial, this would seem an opportune time.

Information about the current papers, registration and travel and accommodation, is available on the Roundtable wesbite and blog (see also here and here). The call for papers is now closed.…

Invasion of Privacy case in the Circuit Court

14 November, 200725 March, 2009

| 2 Comments

| Privacy

From today’s Irish Times (sub req’d):

Landladies ordered to pay students €115,000 in damages
Simon Carswell

Two Dublin landladies have been ordered to pay damages totalling more than €115,000 to 10 students who were tenants in their house after the Circuit Court found they had kept the students under secret electronic surveillance. …

The students became concerned in late 2004 that their conversations and activities were being monitored when the McKennas referred to details the students had discussed in private in the house. When they raised the issue with the McKennas, the students were evicted. … Judge Gerard Griffin yesterday found that the evidence in the case left him “in no doubt whatsoever that the defendants had kept these plaintiffs under electronic surveillance”. … He found the students’ rights to privacy had been infringed and he awarded them damages varying from €7,500 to €12,500 each.

…

Association of European Journalists in Dublin

12 November, 200725 March, 2009

| 2 Comments

| Defamation, Media and Communications, Privacy

The Association of European Journalists held their 45th Annual Congress in Dublin Castle over the weekend. On Saturday, 10 November 2007, the morning session considered the theme:

50 years later: The EU in a shrinking world

And they, lucky people, heard a speech by An Taoiseach (blogged here; reported here, here and here (Irish Times sub req’d)) in which he said that a referendum on the Lisbon Reform Treaty is likely be held in the first half of 2008. (He had previously addressed the Irish Branch of the AEJ in 2005 (reported here), as have several of his Ministers since: Minister of State Treacy in 2007, and Minister Ryan in 2007 – also here).

Of greater interest, the afternoon session considered the theme

Freedom of the Media

The special guest was Miklos Haraszti, Representative for Freedom of the Media in the OSCE. According to an article by Marie O’Halloran in today’s Irish Times (sub req’d), he urged that Ireland should “show the rest of the world and create a wonderful example” by becoming the first western EU state to drop legislation that allows for the jailing of journalists for defamation. He said that said section 34 of the Defamation Bil, 2006 was “very progressive” and abolished common law offences of criminal, seditious and obscene libel, but section 35 allowed for a sentence of up to five years for the publication of “gravely harmful statements”.…

TCD Lecture by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

9 November, 200716 January, 2009

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| Law

On Friday 23 November 2007, at 10.00am, the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin, in association with the Department of Foreign Affairs, will host a guest lecture by Louise Arbour (former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, and now UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; see CBC | wikipedia), entitled:

Responsibility to Protect as a Duty of Care in International Law and Practice

The lecture will take place in the Exam Hall (map here); all are welcome to attend; please RSVP.

The lecture will address the historical origins and development of the responsibility to protect norm, its fundamental differences from the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, the legal core of responsibility to protect and when and how the norm is engaged, the role that UN institutions can play in interpreting and applying the norm and mechanisms of cooperation available to the international community.

It promises to be a fascinating lecture, and I am greatly looking forward to it. It is no exaggeration to say that the international community has not dealt very well either with calls for or with cases of humanitarian intervention, especially over the last ten to fifteen years or so.…

Yale Law School Community Releases Statement on Pakistan

8 November, 200710 November, 2007

| 1 Comment

| Uncategorized

From the Yale Law School website:

The following statement was released Wednesday, November 7, 2007, by Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh, Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law Peter Schuck, Oscar M. Ruebhausen Fellow in Law Jeff Redding, and other members of the Yale Law School and legal communities.* If you would like to add your name to the list, please email your name and title to Carolyn Poole.

*Institutional affiliations are provided for identification purposes only.

We, the undersigned friends and members of the Yale Law School communityâ€”faculty, students, alumni, administration, and staffâ€”denounce in the strongest terms General Pervez Musharrafâ€™s recent assault on the rule of law in Pakistan. By suspending the Constitution; dissolving the Supreme Court and the provincial High Courts and replacing them with judges of his own choosing; engaging in arbitrary and unprovoked arrests of thousands of opposition leaders, journalists, and other law-abiding citizens; and violently suppressing protests by hundreds of lawyers (including graduates of our school) who were acting in the highest tradition of our profession, General Musharraf is trampling upon the very system of law that alone can justify a rulerâ€™s power over his people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow lawyers and the democratic values that they represent, and we urge an early restoration of legality and legitimate authority in Pakistan.

…

The Manifest Destiny of Critics’ Fair Comment, Again

6 November, 20076 November, 2007

| 3 Comments

| Defamation, Freedom of Expression

During the Summer, I wrote about the decision of the UK’s Court of Appeal in Associated Newspapers Ltd v Keith Burstein [2007] EWCA Civ 600 (22 June 2007), to the effect that an opera critic’s review of the defedant’s opera Manifest Destiny was covered by the defence of fair comment. The defendant sought to appeal to the House of Lords. Now, via MediaPal@LSE (see also Media Law Prof Blog) I learn that, at the end of last month, the House of Lords has decided not to hear the appeal on the usual ground the case “does not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered by the House”. According to Ben Dowell in The Guardian, however, the undaunted composer intends to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). I wrote at the time that the Court of Appeal decision was plainly good common sense, and very welcome for it; I am glad that the House of Lords has declined to hear the appeal; and I fully expect the European Court of Human Rights to dismiss the case as manifestly ill-founded (within the meaning of Article 35(3) of the European Convention on Human Rights (pdf)).…

The ultimate outrage

6 November, 20078 September, 2008

| 3 Comments

| Capital Punishment, Law, US Supreme Court

A few weeks ago, The Economist published a Special Report on Capital Punishment in America entitled Revenge begins to seem less sweet. The theme was that Americans – except in Texas – are losing their appetite for the death penalty. One of the many points in a typically well-written, balanced and informative piece was that

It is now far more expensive to execute someone than to jail him for life; in North Carolina, for instance, each capital case costs $2m more. Ordinary inmates need only to be fed and guarded. Those on death row must have lawyers arguing expensively about their fate, sometimes for a decade or more … The system of appeals has grown more protracted because of fears that innocent people may be executed. Few would argue that such safeguards are not needed, but their steep cost gives abolitionists a new line of attack.

This was graphically illustrated by a story in the New York Times last week, headlined: Capital Cases Stall as Costs Grow Daunting: …

cearta.ie

Author: Eoin

Give speech a chance

Restitution Roundtable – 14 December 2007

Invasion of Privacy case in the Circuit Court

Association of European Journalists in Dublin

TCD Lecture by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Yale Law School Community Releases Statement on Pakistan

The Manifest Destiny of Critics’ Fair Comment, Again

The ultimate outrage