It all began innocently enough: just before Christmas, Sunday Times journalist John Burns wrote a piece lamenting the shortcomings of blogging in Ireland. Leading bloggers naturally begged to differ. A month later, the spat was picked up by Trevor Butterworth writing on Forbes.com, who noted that “it’s hard to think of a free country more suited to blogging than Ireland”. By the same token, it’s at least as hard to think of a country more given to litigation; and the point was illustrated by a story retailed almost en passant in Butterworth’s piece:

As one journalist told me, Ireland’s media is currently abuzz over a “confidential” legal settlement against a blogger, who allegedly had to pay almost $140,000 in damages for a libelous post, seen by few, swiftly purged from the site, and readily apologized for.

This was intriguing. By the end of the week, John Burns in the Sunday Times had the full story:

A blogger has agreed a €100,000 settlement after libelling Niall Ó Donnchú, a senior civil servant, and his girlfriend Laura Barnes. It is the first time in Ireland that defamatory material on a blog has resulted in a pay-out. … In December 1, 2006, a blogger who styles himself as Ardmayle posted a comment about the couple … Following a legal complaint, he took down the blog and in February 2007 he posted an apology which had been supplied by Ó Donnchú’s and Barnes’ lawyer … However, the pair subsequently issued separate proceedings. It is understood that the €100,000 settlement was agreed shortly before the case was due before the High Court.

Indeed, there had been quite a detailed report at the time in the Sunday Independent; and in the last week, many blogs have pored over the story.

There’s nothing new in online defamation; the same basic legal principles apply online as they do offline; the medium may change, but the legal consequences of the message remain the same. But the story does raise some interesting legal issues. Mark Coughlan on TheStory.ie pointed out that, before the storm blew up this week, Ardmayle had been “little known, to say the least”, and he quite rightly queried the actual damage the blog had done to the plaintiff’s reputations. UCD law lecturer TJ McIntyre picked up that point:

The level of damages in defamation reflects the extent of publication – i.e. the extent to which the defamatory material was actually read. This is not (despite the best efforts of plaintiffs’ lawyers) the same as the extent to which it might have been read. Consequently (leaving aside other factors such as the gravity of the allegations) damages should be greatly reduced where the audience can be shown to be negligible. Potential readability worldwide notwithstanding.

For him, therefore, the case highlights the importance of keeping good server logs to counter the all-too-easy assumption that “availability online automatically equals a mass audience”.

Ireland’s libel laws have recently been overhauled by the Defamation Act, 2009, which came into force on 1 January this year. Section 31(4) provides that the court in a defamation action shall have regard to a range of factors in making an award of general damages, including:

(b) the means of publication of the defamatory statement including the enduring nature of those means,
(c) the extent to which the defamatory statement was circulated, … [and]
(f) the importance to the plaintiff of his or her reputation in the eyes of particular or all recipients of the defamatory statement …

These considerations tend to reinforce TJ’s point about the importance of keeping good server logs. It is hard to tell from the reports whether any of the Act’s defences might have availed the blogger, though the new defence of fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest, whilst hobbled, may have done.

The Act is a welcome, but incomplete, reform – incomplete not least because it takes little account of the increasing trend towards online communication. In particular, it does not attempt to achieve inter-operability between its restatement of the traditional defence of innocent publication and the defence provided to intermediary service providers by the implementation of the E-Commerce Directive.

Finally, there are questions of the compatibility of this kind of outcome with the free speech provisions of the Irish Constitution and of the European Convention on Human Rights. There are, in particular, emerging arguments that various European Courts have clearly moved to grant traditional press freedoms not only to traditional media but also to online actors such as bloggers engaged in “the creation of forums for public debate”. This might not have protected Ardmayle’s obscure blog, but if – contrary to the views John Burns expressed in the article at this beginning of this post – the Blog O’Sphere continues to develop as a vibrant forums for public debate, then future bloggers in Ardmayle’s shoes may be able to rely on the Constitution and the Convention. Until then, we will all have to tread softly.

Reposted from Index on Censorship.

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Today’s Irish Times carries two interesting interlinked reports. The first is about yesterday’s Press Council seminar in Cork, the second is about TV3’s exposure of Brian Lenihan’s illness, which – unsurprisingly – was one of the issues discussed at the seminar.

First, yesterday’s seminar in Cork:

Media’s role vital to liberty, says Dunne

Freedom would mean less without a free media, entrepreneur Ben Dunne told a seminar organised in Cork yesterday by the Press Council of Ireland. … He condemned the broadcast of the Brian Lenihan story on TV3 on December 26th, saying that it “crossed a line it did not need to cross”. However, he added that TV3 was not the only offender in relation to breaches of privacy.

Another speaker, Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes, told the seminar that the phenomenal development of the internet posed challenges to traditional ideas of privacy and data protection. …

Tightening privacy laws is a recipe for “non-accountability, secrecy and duplicity”, the seminar was told by Paul Drury, managing editor of the Irish Daily Mail, who added that he was wary of any proposal to legislate for heightened privacy.

Paul Drury will be very well aware that TV3’s revelations of Brian Lenihan’s illness could make privacy legislation more likely, even though the Minister himself seems remarkably phlegmatic about it:

Lenihan says he was rushed into telling children about cancer

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has told a local newspaper [the Community Voice newspaper in Blanchardstown] he was rushed into telling his children about his cancer diagnosis on St Stephen’s Day because TV3 had decided to run the story. …

Mr Lenihan said while he did not see what public interest was served between St Stephen’s Day and the new year by TV3 broadcasting the story, he did not intend to lose sleep over it.

Update: Three quick comments. First, thanks, Damien, in the comments below, for pointing me towards the Examiner report on the seminar Dunne slates TV3 for lack of fairness. Second, I couldn’t agree more with Noreen’s comment below that ” the notion that there is supposed to be some kind of journalistic obligation to keep politicians’ secrets is deeply unsettling. It’s in the nature of the media to report the news about public officials. If you’re a journalist, it’s called doing your job”. And, third, there is more about Brian Lenihan’s interview with the Community Voice in a story in today’s Irish Independent.

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In today’s Irish Times, Mary Minihan writes:

Complaints to BAI over TV3 cancer disclosure

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has received 70 e-mails complaining about the TV3 news broadcast on St Stephen’s Day disclosing the cancer diagnosis of Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan. …

Meanwhile, Minster for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin said she and her Government colleagues were “appalled” at the way the story was disclosed. …

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You read it here first folks. Now, in today’s Irish Times, Michael Foley (School of Media, DIT) writes:

Lenihan broadcast could lead to privacy law rethink

ANALYSIS: TV3 had no more than a rumour about Brian Lenihan’s health, and no attributable source. …

Unlike journalists, politicians like rules, and the Minister for Justice has already warned he will revisit his privacy proposals if the media does not behave. The insensitive invasion of a popular politician’s privacy might be just the example he needs.

Expect to see lots of references to this piece as the clamour for privacy legislation begins to grow.

Update: have a look at John McGurk’s thoughtful posts on the issue.

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Mairead Enright, on Human Rights in Ireland, writes:

These are special days in the history of Irish constitutional rights. On December 29, 1937 the Irish Constitution came into force, having been passed by a national plebiscite in July. The picture shows Eamon De Valera, architect of the new Constitution and then President of the Executive Council, standing with members of his cabinet at Government Buildings during the inauguration of the new Constitution. On December 28, 1960, the Oireachtas passed the Health (Fluoridation of Water Supplies) Act, 1960, which required local authorities to fluoridate public water supplies to reduce childhood tooth decay. Mrs. Gladys Ryan had a strong objection to the the fluoridation scheme and challenged the constitutionality of the 1960 Act. Her case; Ryan v AG [1965] IR 294, marks the origin of the doctrine of unenumerated rights in Irish constitutional law.

If you feel like celebrating these milestones, why not raise a glass of fizzy pop to the five young Ryans, whose parents – the case report tells us – ‘did not encourage their children to eat sweets, lollipops or ice cream, and [only permitted them] soft drinks … on Christmas Day.’

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Joe Ryan wrote both an interesting comment on this morning’s post and a great post about the issue on his own blog. My reply to him became too long for a comment, so I’ve upgraded it to this post.

First, I should say that I worked with Brian Lenihan for a few years in TCD, and my thoughts and best wishes are with him and his family at this difficult time. It may be a cliché, but it’s nonetheless true for all that, and I hope he returns to rude good health as quickly as possible.

Second, as TJ McIntyre and Jason Walsh argue, Brian’s illness must be a prime example of a public interest in disclosure. On the other hand, Jim Tormey argues that it is a legitimate matter of public interest only when Brian finds or it appears obvious that he cannot do his job. This is a strong argument, and even some who are wary of overbearing privacy laws are discomfited by TV3’s insensitivity and lack of self-restraint. In the circumstances, I think that Brian showed great restraint in not seeking an injunction to prevent TV3’s broadcast, and I agree with Joe (and with Myles Duffy on The Crimson Observer) that, if Brian chooses to make an issue of it, the matter should go to the recently-fully-established Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI). Compare the adjudications of the Press Ombudsman and Press Council upholding a complaint by Tony Gregory TD that a reporter for the Evening Herald confronting his brother at his home was an invasion of privacy justified neither by the complainant’s public position as a Dáil deputy, nor by the significance of the information being sought about his ongoing battle with cancer. (Ironically, the Herald now thinks that TV3 treated Brian and his family badly).

However, my point – indeed my worry – in my previous post, is not what he himself would do but what others might do ‘on his behalf’, and seek to resurrect the moribund (but flawed) Privacy Bill, 2006?

When he was Minister for Justice in January 2008 (amplifying something he had said two months earlier), Brian did not rule out introducing such a Bill, but instead gave the media 2 years to prove that it was not necessary. Last April, his successor as Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern (rather controversially) said that he plans to revive the dormant Privacy Bill, citing a worrying trend in media intrusion to get a good story. We’re nearly at the end of Brian’s two year grace period, and TV3’s actions are being seen as another example of just such intrusive gutter journalism. As a consequence, I think it very likely that those who want privacy legislation are even now lining up to use it as an excuse to drum up support for it. It would be a great pity if the politicians were to legislate in haste, leaving the rest of us to repent at leisure. Let us first see if the BAI can resolve the issue; only then, with cooler heads, should we proceed to consider whether further legislative intervention is required. If that comes to pass, then TV3’s short-sighted decision to broadcast may have gained them some short-term beneift but in the long-run we will all be short-changed.

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There has been much comment over the weekend about TV3’s disclosure of the serious illness with which Brian Lenihan, Minister for Finance, has recently been diagnosed. This poses many questions, but I want to ask only one: will the public anger at TV3’s disclosure provide the political impetus – or perhaps simply political cover – to proceed with the enactment of the (misconceived) Privacy Bill, 2006?

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Yesterday’s Irish Times reminds me of an interesting High Court judgment handed down early in the Summer. It’s called Dennehy v Independent Star Ltd trading as The Irish Daily Star Newspaper [2009] IEHC 458 (28 May 2009) and it concerns an attempt to bring a prosecution for criminal libel. Section 8 of the Defamation Act, 1961 (also here) provides

No criminal prosecution shall be commenced against any proprietor, publisher, editor or any person responsible for the publication of a newspaper for any libel published therein without the order of a Judge of the High Court sitting in camera being first had and obtained, and every application for such order shall be made on notice to the person accused, who shall have an opportunity of being heard against the application.

When the Defamation Act, 2009 (pdf) comes into effect in the new year, section 4 will repeal the 1961 Act and section 35 will abolish the common law crime of criminal or defamatory libel (the UK is soon to follow this lead). So, the Dennehy is likely to be last Irish case concerning this ancient crime. But the case also looks to the future, as one of the arguments made on behalf of the applicants was founded upon the European Convention of Human Rights, and the reasons why that argument failed are quite striking. Read the rest of this entry »

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