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Category: Blasphemy

FoE in the EHRLR

8 August, 200916 November, 2015
| 3 Comments
| Blasphemy, Censorship, criminal libel, Defamation, ECHR, EU media policy, Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, Legal Journals and Law Reviews, libel tourism, Sedition

EHRLR cover, via ECHR BlogThe current issue of the European Human Rights Law Review ([2009] 3 EHRLR | table of contents (pdf) | hat tip ECHR blog) contains a wonderful piece by my colleague Dr Ewa Komorek entitled “Is Media Pluralism a Human Right? The European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe and the Issue of Media Pluralism” [2009] 3 EHRLR 395.

Here is the abstract (with added links):

The need for pluralist media stopped being purely a national concern a long time ago and thus it has for decades been subject to scrutiny by the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. Media pluralism has always come to their agenda as a prerequisite for freedom of expression guarded by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. It is important to distinguish the two ‘faces’ of media pluralism: internal (which may also be called content pluralism or diversity) and external (or structural). This article focuses on television broadcasting and argues that while the Court of Human Rights has essentially been successful in safeguarding internal pluralism, the protection of structural pluralism proved more difficult to achieve by means of the Court’s case law. This prompted the Council of Europe to step in and attempt to fill the gap with regulatory proposals.

…

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Blasphemy: Pluralisation and Content

30 July, 20093 August, 2009
| 4 Comments
| Blasphemy

In The Godfather, Part III, Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino) laments

Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.

I know how he feels (though without the mafia connections, obviously). I had intended yesterday’s post to be my last on blasphemy for some time, but then Eoin Daly, a PhD student in UCC, went and spoiled it all by writing an excellent guest post on CCJHR blog about the new offence; update and Michael Walsh, a law student at NUI Galway, has written a compelling post critiquing some of my earlier analysis on the issue. To being, some extracts from Eoin’s post:

The Pluralisation of Blasphemy law: Possible Constitutional Implications

Image of UCC Quad, via the UCC Law Faculty website… the most interesting aspect of the new offence [is] the fact that is has been “pluralised”, encompassing material that is “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion.” … blasphemy law has shifted from a religious to a secular legitimation, from the protection of a particular religious truth, to the protection of the sentiments of religious persons, of all recognised affiliations.

However, it is this very fact of a secular legitimation, of “outrage among a substantial number of [any religion’s] adherents”, which renders the contours of the offence unfeasibly vague.

…

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How will the blasphemy offence work?

29 July, 20098 August, 2009
| 3 Comments
| Blasphemy

Blasphemy - The road to Hell has never been funnier.It’s a pity that Part 5 of the Defamation Act, 2009, relating to blasphemy, has dominated the coverage of the Act at home and abroad (eg, US, Denmark (pdf)), since the legislation does considerably more than that. It is radical modernisation of Ireland’s defamation laws, and is a vast improvement on what had gone before. In particular, it provides several means to ensure much speedier resolution of defamation cases; it provides for a new defence of reasonable publication; it significantly improves the law relating to damages in defamation cases; and it gives a stable statutory footing to the Press Council. These will be matters to which I will return on this blog; but, before that, I want to make another comment about Part 5 of the Act.

Part 5 of the Act consists of three sections. Section 35 abolishes the common law offences of defamatory libel, seditious libel and obscene libel are abolished. Section 36, subsections (1)-(2) create the new crime of blapshemy, by making it an offence to cause outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of a religion by intentionally publishing material that grossly abuses or insults matters held sacred by their religion. This is narrowed in two ways: subsection (3) provides a saver for publications of genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value; and subsection (4) excludes from the definition of “religion” an organisation which principally aims to make a profit or which employs oppressive psychological manipulation.…

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Monkeys and blasphemy

24 July, 2009
| 2 Comments
| Blasphemy

Monkey at a typewriter, via Wikipedia.On the monkeys-and-typewriters principle, I suppose it was inevitable that Kevin Myers would eventually write something with which I would agree. He did, today, in the Irish Independent:

I have the right not merely to offend people, but to intend to

… The Ahern law on blasphemy must be the first law ever whose instigator is desperately hoping that it will never be invoked. Its potency depends not upon any legal definition on what blasphemy actually consists of, but solely on the “outrage” that the remark in question might intentionally cause.

… Well, frankly, I think I have the right not merely to offend people, but the right to intend to do so. It is up to them, and their personal capacity to control their emotions, as to whether or not they are outraged. …

Polemical as always, and trenchant, he is making much the same point as I essayed here and here.

On the same principle, it was probably just as inevitable that I would at some stage feel a little sorry for Gerry Ryan. I did, today, when I learned that he had been the subject of a complaint to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission for wondering whether it would be considered blasphemous if someone said on air that “God is a bollocks”.…

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President signs Bills

23 July, 200925 July, 2013
| 6 Comments
| Blasphemy, Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006

President McAleese via WikipediaFrom the Irish Times breaking news site:

President McAleese signs controversial Bills into law

President Mary McAleese has this morning signed the Defamation Bill 2006 and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 into law. …

Updates: from RTÉ news: President signs controversial bills into law; and from the Irish Times: Ahern welcomes Bills’ enactment; see also Belfast Telegraph | BreakingNews.ie | CCJHR blog | IrelandOnline | Irish Election | New Humanist | New York Times | Press Association | Slugger O’Toole | Tribune.ie. Further update: it’s now listed on the official list of Acts signed by President McAleese, as the Defamation Act, 2009 (No 31 of 2009) / An tAcht Um Chlúmhilleadh, 2009 (Uimhir 31 de 2009).

In a press release, the Minister for Justice welcomed both enactments, and he had this to say about the new Defamation Act, 2009:

Modernisation of our Defamation law is now complete on the enactment of the Bill. I believe the legislation in what is a complex area strikes the right balance in the public interest.

For Michael Nugent, the campaign to repeal the new blasphemy law begins now.…

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President’s decision tomorrow

22 July, 200923 July, 2009
| 1 Comment
| Blasphemy, Defamation Bill 2006, Irish Society, Media and Communications

Patience image, via AmazonFor anyone who is as impatient as I am to find out what President McAleese has decided after her meeting this evening with the Council of State, the RTÉ News website is reporting:

The meeting of the Council of State called by the President ended at around 10pm. … The President has indicated she will announce her decisions tomorrow morning. …

Update (23 July 2009): Irish Independent | Irish Times here and here | Jason Walsh here and here | Slugger O’Toole.

And so we wait. Patiently?

Bonus link: meanwhile, the RTÉ news report has a link to the following story from a few weeks ago: OSCE argues against blasphemy law. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) press release to which that story refers is headed: OSCE media freedom representative welcomes Irish draft law decriminalizing libel, asks to drop ‘blasphemous libel’, and begins (with added links):

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, welcomed today the Irish Parliament’s final preparations to decriminalize defamation, but warned that the proposal to introduce a new article on ‘blasphemous libel’ risked jeopardizing OSCE media freedom commitments. …

…

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Blasphemy provisions clash with Constitution

22 July, 200922 July, 2009
| 2 Comments
| Blasphemy, criminal libel, Defamation Bill 2006

Cover of Levy's book on Blasphemy, via the publishers' website.In today’s Irish Times, a piece by yours truly under the above headline:

Blasphemy provisions clash with Constitution

The President has very few unconstrained powers, and the Council of State is convened only rarely, but this evening they will all move centre stage, when the Council convenes to advise the President whether to refer two controversial Bills to the Supreme Court. Whatever she does about the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill, 2009, she should certainly refer the blasphemy provisions of the Defamation Bill, 2006 …

Read all about it here (it’s a development of my argument here).

The cases I mention in the piece are:

  • the case against Gay News magazine (wikipedia) is Whitehouse v Lemon [1979] AC 617 (HL) (wikipedia);
  • the case against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses is R v Metropolitan Magistrate ex p Choudhury [1991] 1 QB 429;
  • the case against Jerry Springer – The Opera is R (on the application of Green) v The City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court [2007] EWHC 2785 (Admin) (05 December 2007);
  • the relevant decisions of the European Court of Human Rights include Wingrove v UK 17419/90 [1996] ECHR 60 (25 November 1996), and Klein v Slovakia 72208/01 [2006] ECHR 909 (31 October 2006); and
  • the case against the Sunday Independent for publishing the divorce referendum cartoon is Corway v Independent Newspapers [1999] 4 IR 485; [2000] 1 ILRM 426; [1999] IESC 5 (30 July 1999).
  • …

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    Another twist in the tale of the Defamation Bill

    17 July, 200925 July, 2013
    | 13 Comments
    | Blasphemy, criminal libel, Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006, Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, judges

    Áras an Uachtaráin = Residence of the President of Ireland, via the President's siteThe saga of the Defamation Bill, 2006 is not over yet. Article 26 of Bunreacht na hÉireann (the Irish Constitution) allows the President, after consultation with Council of State, to refer a Bill to the Supreme Court for a determination of its constitutionality. President McAleese has chosen to convene the Council of State to advise her on the qustion of whether to refer not only the (controversial) Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill, 2009 (an unsurprising move) but also the (equally controversial) blasphemy elements of the Defamation Bill, 2006 (which has come as a great surprise). (See Belfast Telegraph | BreakingNews.ie | Bock the Robber | ICCL | Irish Emigrant | Irish Independent | RTÉ news | Irish Times | PA | Slugger O’Toole. Update (18 July 2009): see also Irish Examiner | Irish Times here and here | Irish Independent | MediaWatchWatch).

    There have been 15 such references to date. If the Court holds that a Bill is unconstitutional, the President must decline to sign it; whilst if the Court decides a Bill is constitutional, the President must sign it into law, and the resulting Act is immune from constitutional challenge in the future.…

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