prior restraint – Page 2

Fine Gael‘s new policy document “Reinventing Government” will no doubt keep a lot of political debates (and perhaps even fires) burning during the long cold November nights, and I look forward to the heat thereby generated. Quick off the mark was Ninth Level Ireland with a summary of its proposals on universities. Glancing through it, I was also taken by two aspects of its list of “Quangos to be abolished” in Appendix 1, one inclusion and one omission. The inclusion is this:

Department of Justice and Law Reform

… Merge Censorship of Publications Board and Office of Film Censor and Irish Film Classification Office into single Censorship Office.

Merge Censorship of Publications Appeals Board and Censorship of Films Appeal Board into single Censorship Appeals Office. …

I can understand why a classification system for movies and computer games is felt to be necessary, but I am at a loss to understand the need for prior restraint upon print publications, and I would therefore achieve the desired savings simply by abolishing the Censorship of Publications Board and Censorship of Publications Appeals Board altogether. …

The Irish Times should appeal the costs order to the ECHR – Part II

8 December, 20097 November, 2010

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| ECHR, Irish Law, Journalists' sources, prior restraint

In Mahon Tribunal v Keena [2009] IESC 64 (31 July 2009) (also here (pdf) (to which I will refer as Mahon Tribunal v Keena (No 1)) the Irish Times successfully resisted an attempt by the Mahon Tribunal to compel the Editor and Public Affairs Correspondent of the Irish Times to disclose the source of a leaked Tribunal document. However, in Mahon Tribunal v Keena [2009] IESC 78 (26 November 2009) (to which I will refer as Mahon Tribunal v Keena (No 2)), the Court held that the journalists should pay the Tribunal’s costs of more than €600,000.

In yesterday’s post, I argued that this was illogical: if the journalists had a privilege to with-hold the document and decline to answer the questions, then they had the privilege, and it doesn’t matter what they did with the document, and taking objection to its destruction by the journalists is neither here nor there. However, even if this might provide some justification for some punishment of the journalists, nevertheless, the European Court of Human Rights is very likely hold that this punishment is inconsistent with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. A crucial case in this respect is Cumpana and Mazare v Romania 33348/96, (2005) 41 EHRR 14, [2004] ECHR 692 (17 December 2004), where the Court held that although some penalty would have been appropriate, disproportionately severe sanctions infringed the applicant journalists’ Article 10 rights.…

I spy, but I can’t show and tell

13 November, 20092 March, 2011

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| Freedom of Expression, prior restraint

Judith Miller published a story which, among other things, named Valerie Plame as a CIA spy. In later grand jury proceedings, Miller declined to name her source, despite a decision of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals that she had to do so, and spent 85 days in prison for her troubles. In truth, both Plame and Miller were pawns in a bigger game being played by the White House, but a lawsuit by Plame against members of the Bush administration was dismissed. In the meantime, Plame wrote a memoir about the affair: Fair Game. My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House (cover left) (Amazon | Simon & Schuster) but she was prevented by the CIA from writing about various aspects of her employment with them. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held (pdf) yesterday that this restriction did not infringe her First Amendment right to free speech.

When she joined the CIA, she signed a standard form secrecy agreement in which she agreed never to disclose classified information which she obtained in the course of her employment, and to submit publications which could do so to the CIA for pre-publication review, and – in Wilson v CIA – the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the CIA’s refused to allow her to disclose her dates of service and other information relating to her employment before 2002.…

ECHR on Arts 6, 8 and 10

6 February, 20095 February, 2009

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| ECHR, Freedom of Expression, prior restraint, Privacy

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was promulgated by the Council of Europe in 1950. The European Court of Human Rights was established under that Convention to enforce the rights protected by it, and it has recently handed down three very interesting judgments concerning Articles 6 (fair trial), 8 (privacy), and 10 (speech).

Article 6(1) provides that

… everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. …

ECHR blog brings news of Application no 22330/05 Olujic v Croatia (05/02/2009), in which adverse public comments by three judges in advance of hearing a case against the applicant denied him a fair hearing within the meaning of Article 6. What makes the case all the more interesting is that Olujic had been President of the Supreme Court, the case concerned his dismissal from the bench for publicly fraternising with known criminals, the three judges had publicly and adversely commented about this after the allegations had been made, and one had been a rival candidate for the Presidency of the Court.

Article 8(1) provides:

Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

…

Say, what?

14 April, 20087 November, 2010

| 1 Comment

| Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications, prior restraint

From today’s Bits Blog on the New York Times site:

Newspapers Argue for First Amendment Right to Snoop on Readers

Usually, when people talk about the trade offs between privacy and freedom of the press, the argument is about whether the public has the right to know some fact about an individual’s personal life.

The newspaper industry is now arguing that the First Amendment protects its right to follow users around the Internet so it can charge higher prices on advertising.

This argument was made in a filing by Newspaper Association of America commenting on the Federal Trade Commission’s proposal that the companies involved in advertising that uses what is called behavioral targeting create a self-regulatory code that limits their use of sensitive information.

…

Legislating Truth

17 January, 20087 November, 2010

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| Blasphemy, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications, prior restraint

I am a politics junkie – I will watch party conferences and conventions, and enjoy the experiences! And I still remember a Fianna Fáil Árd Fhéis (national party conference) in which Charlie Haughey began a key section of his leader’s speech by asserting: “The truth, as we in Fianna Fáil see it, is …”. I don’t remember what he said after that, because I was so flabbergasted at the audacity of making truth contingent upon a political point of view. Of course, this was only a small thing compared to the flabbergasting audacity of other aspects of Haughey’s career, but the attitude of subordinating truth to political power is not unique to him or to Fianna Fáil. A particularly egregious example is provided by reports this morning that the author of a book on anti-Semitism in Poland may face court action. According to Derek Scally in the Irish Times (sub req’d):

The public prosecutor in Krakow has launched a preliminary investigation into a US historian who says post-war Poland continued where the Nazis left off in persecuting Jews. Jan Tomasz Gross [home page at Princeton | wikipedia] could, under a law passed by the Kaczynski government, face a prison sentence if found guilty of “accusing the Polish nation of participating in communist or Nazi crimes”.

…

“The right of a free press to communicate information without let or restraint is intrinsic to a free and democratic society”

29 March, 200723 September, 2016

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| Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Media and Communications, prior restraint

I have recently commented on this blog that the right to freedom of expression Article 40.6.1(i) has finally got some teeth!?. That process continued today in the Supreme Court, where Fennelly J uttered the line used as the title to this post. …

cearta.ie

Category: prior restraint

Why do we need a Censorship of Publications Board?

Department of Justice and Law Reform

The Irish Times should appeal the costs order to the ECHR – Part II

I spy, but I can’t show and tell

ECHR on Arts 6, 8 and 10

Say, what?

Legislating Truth

“The right of a free press to communicate information without let or restraint is intrinsic to a free and democratic society”