Mobile phones, again
Given my views about mobile phones in class, I’m grateful to John Naughton for his post about this YouTube clip:
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Given my views about mobile phones in class, I’m grateful to John Naughton for his post about this YouTube clip:
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As I wrote in my previous post, the Supreme Court in Mahon Tribunal v Keena [2009] IESC 64 (31 July 2009) (also here (pdf)) allowed the appeal against the decision of the High Court in Mahon v Keena [2007] IEHC 348 (23 October 2007). Fennelly J delivered the judgment of the Court, in which Murray CJ and Geoghegan, Macken and Finnegan JJ concurred, and its effect is that two Irish Times journalists could decline to answer questions about their sources (unsurprisingly, there is a lot of coverage in that paper: see here, here, here, here and here).
1. Introduction
There are at least three important aspects to Fennelly J’s decision. The first relates to his almost exclusive reliance on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), rather than the Irish Constitution. The second relates to his approach to the issues in general and to his treatment of the High Court judgment in particular: in short, he felt that the High Court had overstated the balance against the appellants. And the third relates to what he had to say about the nature of a journalist source privilege: in short, he preferred to avoid such language in favour simply of a balancing test.…
Via Peter Black’s Freedom to Differ blog, I came across this video from the Society for Geek Advancement:
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I have heard it said that when you get two lawyers in a room, you get at least three opinions. This is, unfortunately, usually true. It is therefore all the more impressive when you can get 133 of them to agree on something. Here’s a letter in today’s Irish Times on the impact of the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill, 2009, which is to be subject to a legislative guillotine before the Dáil rises next week:
…Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill
Madam, – We the undersigned are lawyers whose practices include the area of criminal law. Many of us both prosecute and defend. We see at first hand the effect of crime, particularly violent crime on individuals and communities in our society and we also have a close up view of the criminal justice system with its strengths and its frailties.
We are extremely concerned then about the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 which, it appears, is likely to become law this week. It has been introduced without any research to support its desirability and without canvassing expert opinion or inviting contribution from interested parties on the issues. It appears now that it will be passed without proper debate in the Dáil because such debate has been guillotined by the Government.
No, it’s not about a Rolling Stones song, or a Jean-Luc Goddard movie, but instead, in another sign of the times, it’s a cartoon about lawyers from the wonderful Non Sequitur cartoon strip:
The box on the top left corner says: Why unemployed lawyers have trouble getting sympathy.
The unemployed lawyer’s placard says: Will bill you for my time watching you walk by
Click on the image or here for the larger, more legible, original.…
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