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Category: criminal libel

Criminal libel; one faltering step forward, now two steps back

6 May, 20093 October, 2023
| 7 Comments
| criminal libel, Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006

Houses of the Oireachtas, via their websiteA little more than a month ago, I wondered why legislators are so loath to repeal criminal libel provisions. However, in a subsequent post, I acknowledged that section 34 of the Defamation Bill, 2006 as introduced provided for the abolition of the common law offences of criminal libel, seditious libel and obscene libel. It now seems that I wrote too soon and that my original skepticism was justified. No sooner had my fingers left the keyboard on the second post than news came that the Bill had returned to the top of the legislative agenda. The Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights has begun the Committee Stage of the Bill. Several amendments (pdf) are being considered, almost all of which are retrenchments upon the advances made in earlier drafts of the Bill.

It seems to me that the longer it takes to enact the Bill, the more restrictive it becomes. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of criminal libel. Head 65(1) of the draft Bill appended to the Report of the Legal Advisory Group on Defamation (pdf) (disclosure: I was a member of the Group) provided for the abolition of the common law offences of criminal, blasphemous, seditious and obscene libel.…

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Students and Obscenity

22 October, 200731 July, 2013
| 3 Comments
| criminal libel, Freedom of Expression, Obscenity, US Supreme Court

At the University of Washington and Lee‘s branch of the American Constitution Society event last Thursday, I heard Rodney Smolla (Dean of that university’s First Amendment issues: the speech rights of high school students (on which contrast here and here), and First Amendment law on obscenity.

High School Speech
(Insert High School Musical joke to taste here).

'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' protest, via WSJ.The first case he discussed was Morse v Frederick 551 US __ (2007) (Justice Talking (NPR) | oyez | wikipedia), in which the Supreme Court had to decide whether a banner bearing the slogan “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” at a school outing to watch the Olympic torch run through town (though not on school property) got First Amendment protection. Roberts CJ held that, because schools may take steps to safeguard students from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use, the school did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the banner and suspending the student.

Dean Smolla argued that there were three key elements to Roberts CJ’s reasoning. …

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Hi there! Thanks for dropping by. I’m Eoin O’Dell, and this is my blog: Cearta.ie – the Irish for rights.


“Cearta” really is the Irish word for rights, so the title provides a good sense of the scope of this blog.

In general, I write here about private law, free speech, and cyber law; and, in particular, I write about Irish law and education policy.


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