Filibuster: (noun) an action such as a prolonged speech that obstructs progress in a legislative assembly while not technically contravening the required procedures.

The word originates in words of piracy, such as the French ‘flibustier’, the Spanish ‘filibustero’ and the Dutch ‘vrijbuiter’, all etymologically equivalent to ‘freebooter’. The 1939 movie ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington‘, directed by Frank Capra (nominated for two oscars for this movie), stars Jimmy Stewart, in his patented role of a young naif, this time oscar-nominated as a newly elected Junior Senator Jefferson Smith. The climax of the movie is a filibuster staged by Mr Smith in the Senate so that there would be enough time to expose the corruption of his mentor, Senator Joseph Harrison Paine, played by the also oscar-nominated Claude Rains.

I have already commented on the slow progress of the Defamation Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) and the number of red herrings in the debate, and concluded that it had become increasinlgy unlikely that the Bill would be enacted before the election. Now, from yesterday’s Order of Business in the Seanad (html | pdf to follow | Irish Times report (sub req’d)), a cynical explanation: a filibuster! Read the rest of this entry »

Trócaire have just posted a statement on their website, under the headline “BCI upholds its decision on Trócaire advert”, in which they say that they have agreed to revise their controversial radio and television advertisments:

Trócaire has been informed today by the BCI that it is confirming it’s initial decision in relation to Trócaire’s Lenten advertisement on gender equality, deeming that the campaign is toward a political end.

The BCI has proposed an amendment to the script of the broadcast as follows:
“Support Trócaire to help end gender inequality.”

The original script stated:
“Support Trócaire’s Lenten Campaign to help end gender inequality.”

Despite this change Trócaire is satisfied that the three elements of our Lenten campaign namely, fundraising, awareness raising and campaigning on UN Resolution 1325 [link] (including the online petition [link]) are still fully intact. All these activities continue as before. Read the rest of this entry »

According to an article by Paul Cullen on the front page of today’s Irish Times, there are moves under way to create a new Court of Appeal for Ireland. This can only be welcome news, both for litigants and for judges.

Even though the nine judges of the Supreme Court can sit now in divisions of three, it can still take up to two years or more for an appeal to be heard; and a Court of Appeal that relieved that backlog of cases and allowed litigants’ appeals to be heard and decided more quickly would undoubtedly be good news for litigants. Moreover, too many cases come to the Court to allow it to do its work as a Supreme Court: at present, it hears more than 300 cases a year, compared with no more than 100 in the US Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Canada, the High Court of Australia, and the House of Lords (which, in its judicial capacity, is the UK’s highest court). In those jurisdictions, there is an automatic right to appeal to Court of Appeal level from cases at High Court level, so litigants always get the option of an appeal; but there is an appeal from Court of Appeal level to the court of final appeal only in cases where that latter court is persuaded that there are special or exceptional reasons for the appeal to be heard. If this logical model is followed in Ireland, then interposing a Court of Appeal would provide litigants with an untrammelled right of appeal whilst allowing the Supreme Court to take only the most important cases, as those other courts of final appeal do. Read the rest of this entry »

Trócaire is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It runs several campaigns challenging the root causes of poverty and injustice. And every year during Lent (BBC | wikipedia), to raise both much need funds and public consciousness about its work, it runs a Lenten campaign, distributing collection boxes through churches and so on to schools and homes in the hope that the boxes will be filled during Lent and their contents donated to Trócaire after Easter. The image (top, left) is on this year’s box (discussed here by Brian Greene); and the advertising campaign that goes with it focuses on gender inequality to promote equal rights for women and men around the world. You can view the television advertisment here. However, that advertising campaign is now getting Trócaire into hot water. Various newspapers report this morning (Irish Examiner | Irish Independent | Irish Times) that the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has banned these advertisments. Read the rest of this entry »

Q: What do these two things have in common?
A: They’re both in the news today for the same reason.

Two short quotes. The first one is from the list of motions for the Progressive Democrats‘ national conference today:

Motion 19
Conference calls for a review of the proposed privacy legislation in the Party’s General Election Manifesto in particular to avoid the dangers of muzzling the press through court injunction.
Dublin South East

Motion 20
Conference calls on Government to reactivate the proposal for café bars.
Dublin South East

The second is from a story on the RTE news website:

The PD conference in Wexford has voted overwhelmingly for the reactivation of party leader Michael McDowell’s café bar proposals. … The conference also voted in favour of a review of proposed Privacy legislation.

I’d say that the delegates from Dublin South East (the constituency of Michael McDowell, PD Party Leader, and Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Minister for Justice) have set several cats among several pigeons with these motions. We’ll have to wait and see whether these policies make it into the forthcoming election manifesto (and any subsequent programme for government).

(Thanks to Daithí for tipping me off about this (offblog)).

… all you have to do is live long enough. This quote has been ascribed to Groucho Marx. Goverments too grow old. And when age creeps upon them, they make promises to secure re-election. Mary Harney, the Minister for Health and Children, and former leader of the Progressive Democrats (the PDs) (a small, right-of-centre, political party) has just called for an Ombusdman for Older People at that party’s annual conference in Wexford. She expects (expects? well, she should know!) that a commitment to introduce legislation to this effect in the first year of a new term in government will feature in the party’s forthcoming election manifesto. It is to be modelled on the office of the Ombudsman for Children, which was established by the Ombudsman for Children Act, 2002, and, according to Harney

will provide a focused, statutory office to be an advocate for older people, as well as providing a dedicated service for redress beyond existing organisations. This new office will be a new means to empower and respect older people accessing health and public services. …

It is one thing to establish the office. It is quite another to take it seriously. Read the rest of this entry »

In his great poem ‘Sunday Morning‘, Louis MacNeice describes Sunday morning as ‘Fate’s great bazaar’. And tomorrow morning, Fate’s great bazaar will bring us political blogging on the television (which is marginally less silly than Irish dancing – or for that matter, blogging – on the radio). Sunday morning, 9am, is an unholy hour to be awake on a weekend morning, but if perchance you are, then you could do worse than to tune in to Sunday AM at 9am on BBC1 for a political blogging special (via Guido Fawkes and Ian Dale).

Cross-posted from Irish Election

Daithí (with a hat tip to Lessig) has come up with an excellent idea for this election year, and for our next government:

We know that a lot of interesting IP and IT law and policy issues … will make their way into new Cabinet workplans.

This week, I’m calling on interested parties (interested being those (bloggers or not) with an interest in the legal and policy elements of the Internet …) to join in. Each person will be responsible for one proposal, of her or his choice … to identify an existing law (â€?lawâ€? including whatever you want it to, and specifically including European directives, as a lot of the American issues are EU competence over here), and to suggest how it could be improved / amended / replaced / etc.

Brilliant idea. Wish I’d thought of it. Read the rest of this entry »