Suzy must get the prize for popularising the best political coinage of the day, for – so far as I can see – it is she who has run with the name “Cowengate” for the sturm und drang surrounding satirical portraits of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Brian Cowen. In a piece of guerrilla artistry as ingenious as the coinage Suzy has popularised, caricatures of Mr Cowen were anonymously hung on the walls of the National Gallery of Ireland and the Royal Hibernian Academy. Once they were discovered, they were removed, but not before they had garnered sufficient publicity for RTÉ (Raidio Telefís Éireann, the national state broadcaster) to broadcast a story about them on the flagship 9:00pm television news programme.

It has been the occasion for lots of bad puns and some embarrassment on the part of the Taoiseach, the Gallery and the Academy, but in the ordinary course of things, the story should have blown over after about 48hours. However, things then took two turns for the worse. First, RTÉ apologised to Mr Cowen and his family or for any disrespect shown to the office of Taoiseach by their broadcast. Second, when the radio station Today fm covered the story, the Gardaí (the police) arrived at the station asking that an email with the artist’s details be handed over (.wav). Leaving the obvious jokes aside (because they have all been done better elsewhere), these two quite sinister developments raise some profound questions about freedom of expression in Ireland. Read the rest of this entry »

Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgksy’s Pictures at an Exhibition, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at the BBC Proms in August 2006

This post is an addendum to Cowengate and Freedom of Expression (above). In the original version of that post, I had a paragraph of links to other coverage. Like Topsy, that paragraph growed and growed, so I’ve taken the list of links out of that post and put them here.
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Article XIX, the Global Campaign for Freedom of Expression, is an international human rights organisation which defends and promotes freedom of expression and access to information worldwide. Defamation is one of the Global Issues on which they focus. Indeed, their 2000 Defining Defamation report (pdf) seeks to set out an appropriate balance between the human right to freedom of expression and the need to protect individual reputations. Principle 4 of this document, concerning criminal defamation, provides

(a) All criminal defamation laws should be abolished and replaced, where necessary, with appropriate civil defamation laws. Steps should be taken, in those States which still have criminal defamation laws in place, to progressively implement this Principle.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, they have this week published an overview of worldwide defamation trends, which they have enlivened with interactive maps of applicable legislation and punishments. They simply record that, for both Ireland and the UK, there are civil and criminal sanctions for defamation. But, in a parallel development, they have lobbied (letter | press release (both pdfs)) the UK government to accept an amendment of the Coroners and Justice Bill 2008 put down by Dr Evan Harris, MP which would abolish criminal libel in the UK. [Update: see also Index on Censorship here and here] Harris told the Times:

Seditious libel and criminal defamation laws are a stain on our legal system and a terrible example to set in a world where free expression is so often restricted and oppressed. Parliament should sieze this chance to get rid of them.

In the same article, Geoffrey Robertson QC said

These laws have an inglorious history. They were deployed by the King’s lick-spittle judges in the Star Chamber to torture puritans, and later used against John Wilkes and Tom Paine’s publishers. Their continuing existence serves only to provide an excuse for modern despots when they jail their critics – they always claim that they are merely using laws that are also on the UK statute book. It is time to expunge them.

A wonderful discussion of these cases is provided by Lord Walker’s Bentham Club Presidential Address on Security, Freedom of Speech and Criminal Justice in the age of Pitt, Burke and Fox (pdf).

Consequently, the amendment proposed by Harris simply provided:

The offences of sedition and seditious libel under the common law of England and Wales are abolished.

However, the House of Commons website records that the amendment was not taken during the debate. This is a pity, and I hope that it can be taken when the Bill is debated again. I have already blogged extensively about a similar Irish effort (here, here, here, here, here and here) in Part 5 of the still-delayed Defamation Bill, 2006. Whatever happened to that? Indeed, as the title question asks: why are legislators so loath to repeal criminal libel provisions?

Two Australian stories recently caught my eye; and, although at first blush the only link is Australia, there is in fact a deeper connection. The first is from the BBC news Website:

Writer jailed for Thai ‘insult’

Australian writer Harry Nicolaides has been sentenced to three years in a Thai jail for insulting the monarchy. Nicolaides wrote a novel four years ago, which contained a brief passage referring to an unnamed crown prince. It sold just seven copies.

He admitted the charge of insulting the royal family, but said he was unaware he was committing an offence. Thailand’s monarchy is sheltered from public debate by some of the world’s most stringent “lèse-majesté” laws.

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In The State (Lynch) v Cooney [1982] IR 337, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of a statutory provision [section 31(1) of the Broadcasting (Authority) Act, 1960 (also here) as amended by section 16 of the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Act, 1976 (also here) - thankfully repealed in 2001] which allowed the Minister to preclude from broadcast any matter which “would be likely to promote, or incite to, crime or would tend to undermine the authority of the State”. O’Higgins CJ for the Court held that the free speech guarantee [Article 40.6.1(i)] of the Constitution

enables the State, in certain instances, to control these rights and freedoms. The basis for any attempt at control must be, according to the Constitution, the overriding considerations of public order and morality. The constitutional provision in question refers to organs of public opinion and these must be held to include television as well as radio. It places upon the State the obligation to ensure that these organs of public opinion shall not be used to undermine public order or public morality or the authority of the State. It follows that the use of such organs of opinion for the purpose of securing or advocating support for organisations which seek by violence to overthrow the State or its institutions is a use which is prohibited by the Constitution. Therefore, it is clearly the duty of the State to intervene to prevent broadcasts on radio or television which are aimed at such a result or which in any way would be likely to have the effect of promoting or inciting to crime or endangering the authority of the State.

A subsequent challenge to the section on the grounds that it was contrary to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights was rejected in 15404/89 Purcell v Ireland (Decision of 16 April 1991). Moreover, the House of Lords in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex p Brind [1991] 1 AC 696, [1991] UKHL 4 (07 February 1991) sustained a similar ban; and an Article 10 challenge subsequently shared Purcell’s fate (see 8714/91 Brind v UK (Decision of 9 May 1994)).

I was reminded of this today reading an article by Joanne Mariner (Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW)) on Findlaw’s Writ column. Her article is called “Terrorism and Speech”. Read the rest of this entry »