Author: Eoin

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

A Cry for Help? Freedom of Expression and Unenumerated Rights in the Irish Constitution

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| Freedom of Expression

Cover of Irish ConstitutionI have agreed to give a paper at a forthcoming conference on the 70th anniversary of the Irish Constitution. The main focus of the session in which my paper will be given is unenumerated rights in the Constitution; and the main focus of my paper will be on speech rights. Other papers in the session are likely to focus on unenumerated rights generally and on privacy in particular. Against this background, I think the theme my of paper will be that unenumerated rights which the courts have spelled out of things mentioned on the face of the constitution are capable of being pernicious, illegitimately preventing the proper development of the text itself. …

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Hello, world

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| Blogging

I have been blogging since about the end of last September – first in a very private offline way just to get the hang of it; then online but behind a firewall, just to get the hang of the wordpress platform. I had always intended that the draft posts composed in these trials would be available as an archive when the blog went fully live. But I reckoned without the great god of blogging, who sent two scourges upon me. The combined result is that I’ve lost about 25% of the draft or shadow posts; and whilst I have reconstructed some of them, I’ve decided to bit the bullet and just simply go live now without any further backfilling.

The world has lost my thoughts on: various aspects of funding and policy in the Irish university sector; conferences I attended in the last few months on privacy, defamation and broadcasting; some cases on freedom of expression, privacy, restitution and copyright; and some random musings about life, the universe and everything. I’m sure the world will survive. But since these are themes which interest me, I’m sure that I will return to these issues in the future, so the world will get my ideas on them whether it wants them or not.…

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Questions and Answers

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| Privacy

My Monday evening viewing has, for many years, often included Questions and Answers on RTE1, but this is the first time I’ve blogged one of the episodes (which should appear here soon). Among the guests were Ger Colleran, Editor of the Irish Daily Star, and Andrea Martin, solicitor and consultant on media law. So I assumed that there would be a privacy question related to the case to which I referred in a previous post.

I wasn’t disappointed. …

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Why do I blog?

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| Blogging

This is a question I have had occasion to ask already on this blog. And a few searches with the words “why” and “blog” brought back a wealth of self-reflection. As always, the vast BBC website had something thoughtful to say; I rather liked this post on Sandhill Trek (the hill seems to have run into the sand in April 2006, which may or may not be a metaphor for the transience of bloggers); and the comments and trackback on this post on molly.com were very enlightening.

That little excursion around the blogosphere (wikipedia | technorati) was prompted after I came across an interesting post on darrenbarefoot.com. He wants to gather information and spark a discussion, because he has to talk about it at a conference February, so he has put together a very simple (I know it’s simple; I was able to do it!) 16-question survey, and accompanying discussion forum. So go on, do the survey, post to the forum, blog about it on your own blogs, pass it on, and start another cyber-meme. Oh, and he’s offering cool prizes for participation (though I took the survey out of genuine thirst for knowledge, and not because I want to win an iPod, one of two travel books, or a gift certificate.…

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Cracks in the great firewall?

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| Uncategorized

Rebecca MacKinnon on RConversation reports that Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Vodaphone display some cojones, referring to a press release from Business for Social Responsibiity which says that a

diverse group of companies, academics, investors, technology leaders and human rights organizations announced today its intention to seek solutions to the free expression and privacy challenges faced by technology and communications companies doing business internationally

As MacKinnon puts it, this “is not only the right thing to do, but these [companies] all recognize that in the long run ethical business is smart business”. More to the point, an agreed platform will not only make it more difficult for countries which fail to protect human rights to pick off companies one by one but it will also make it easier for companies to resist country-based censorship.

The great test will, of course, be China (wkipedia | Global Voices). Even the longest journey must begin with a single step; and this very important development is an excellent first step. …

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Privacy in a Public Place

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| Privacy

It had to happen. After lots of dancing around the subject, a court finally has to face a submission that there is no common law cause of action for invasion of privacy at Irish law. Mary Carolan reports in today’s Irish Times that, in a case currently before Mr Justice Budd in the High Court, the Carlow Nationalist is appealing against an award of €6,500 to Richard Sinnott in the Circuit Court in Carlow last June. The Nationalist published photographs of him playing in a gaelic football match. Although in the ordinary run of things, this would be entirely unexceptionable, Mr Sinnott took exception this time because, in one of the photographs, his private parts were exposed.

The Circuit Court held that this infringed Mr Sinnott’s right to privacy. The Nationalist is appealing. On this ground at least, they should succeed. …

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Blowins and Invasion of Privacy

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| Freedom of Expression, Irish Society, Privacy

A Dublin family, the Grays, who moved to Ballybunion, Co Kerry, under the Rural Resettlement Programme, discovered the hard way just how confidential garda (police) records can be (or not). After their nephew had been released from prison, having served a sentence for rape, they took him in for a while. The local gardaí leaked this to the local media, and the wonderful welcoming people of Kerry not only shunned the family, but the public mood turned so nastily against the family that they suffered mental distress, anxiety and personal injury, and eventually had to leave their rural idyll. The Irish Times website reports that, in the High Court today, the family succeeded in their action for invasion of privacy against the state.

As TJ McIntyre points out, this is not the first time that the gardai have leaked information to the press and been found to have invaded privacy as a result. This raises a great number of issues, not only about privacy, but also about freedom of expression, and journalists’ sources.…

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