cearta.ie – Page 109 – the Irish for rights

Two pieces in yesterday’s Irish Times caught my eye. The first relates to the retirement of the man who has probably the most recognised signature in Ireland. The second relates to the responsibility of those who write other words that many of us read.

For the past six years, every movie released in Ireland has been classified by his office with a certificate signed by him. He is John Kelleher, and he has just retired as Director of the Irish Film Classification Office:

‘I don’t believe in censoring for adults’

He’s seen nearly 2,000 films personally and supervised the watching of 55,000 others, yet the film censor John Kelleher only banned one film. Mr Kelleher, the director of the Irish Film Classification Office (Ifco), stepped down yesterday just two days short of his 65th birthday. …

He says his biggest achievement in office was to be involved in last year’s Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which changed the name from the Irish Film Censor’s Office to the [the Irish Film Classification Office] Ifco. The Act changed his job title to reflect his primary role in classifying rather than censoring films. The phrase “likely to cause harm to children” was introduced into the legislation for the first time.

…

Conference: Recent developments in Irish Defamation Law

21 November, 200921 November, 2009

| 2 Comments

| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops, Defamation, Media and Communications

Next week, the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin, will host a conference on

Recent Developments in Irish Defamation Law – Including the Defamation Act, 2009

It will be on from 9:30am to 1:15pm on Saturday, 28 November 2009, in the Davis Theatre, Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin.

As regular readers of this blog will know, Irish Defamation law has undergone a number of radical changes in the last twelve months including, most notably, the changes which are to be wrought by the newly enacted Defamation Act, 2009 (pdf). These changes will significantly influence the way in which defamation cases are to be managed and may, potentially, represent a shift in the traditional balance between plaintiffs and defendants in defamation cases. The conference will consider the nature of such changes. Here’s the provisional programme:

09:00 Registration

  09:30   Paul O’Higgins, SC  The Defamation Act from the Plaintiff’s Perspective
  09:55   Eoin McCullough, SC  The Defamation Act from the Defendant’s
Perspective
  10:20   Paula Mullooly  The Defamation Act from the Solicitor’s Perspective
  10:45   Questions and Discussion

11:00 Tea/Coffee Break

  11:15   Brendan Kirwan BL  Injunctive Relief and Remedies
  11:40   Ray Ryan BL  Key Points of Practice and Procedure in Defamation
  12:05   Dr Eoin Carolan BL  Alternative Causes of Action
  12:30   Dr Eoin O’Dell The Defamation Act: The Constitutional Dimension
  12:55   Questions and Discussion

13:15 Conference Ends

14:30 Ireland v South Africa (Croke Park)

For more information or to make a reservation, please phone ((01) 896 2367), fax ((01) 677 0449), email, or visit the website.…

The Regulation and Perception of Political Advertising

20 November, 200914 September, 2020

| 2 Comments

| advertising, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Freedom of Expression

: Eisenhower for President via Youtube

As a companion piece to the Reagan advertisement in my last post, Eisenhower for President (left), built around the famous slogan “I like Ike”, is regarded as the first paid political television advertisement. I wonder what the first Irish one will be, and when?

I promised in an earlier post that I would look again at Kevin Rafter’s recent report on Political Advertising: The Regulatory Position & the Public View (here), the research for which was funded under the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s Media Research Scheme.

In Ireland, political advertising is banned in the broadcast media, but there are no similar restrictions upon the non-broadcast media, such the press, billboards, and so on, though a system of party political broadcasts during election and referendum campaigns is intended to mitigate the harshness of the broadcast advertising ban.

This distinction between broadcast and print media is often justified by the particular power of the broadcast medium. However, a local ban takes little account of developments in broadcasting (cable, satellite and digital channels) and telecommunications (the internet, mobile devices), and radio and television have nothing like the reach and impact that they had even a generation ago.…

Political advertising in the morning

18 November, 200926 November, 2012

| 3 Comments

| advertising, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Freedom of Expression

: Morning in America via Youtube

Morning in America (left) is the common name of a political adverisment used by Ronald Reagan in the 1984 US presidential election. Officially entitled Prouder, Stronger, Better, the optimistic tone of the advertisment made it one of the most effective political campaign advertisments ever made (and went hand in hand with another famous political advertisment critical of his opponent). It is an advertisment that comes to mind whenever I think about political advertising.

Following on from yesterday’s post, here are three quick updates on political advertising.

First, Kevin Rafter’s report for the BAI (here) has been picked up by the The Irish Film & Television Network. Second, there is a very good letter in today’s Irish Times on the issue:

Madam, – A proposal to alter the restrictions on political and religious advertising is long overdue (News, November 16th). The decision, some weeks ago, by RTÉ to ban a fundraising advertisement by the Shell to Sea campaign is an indication of the folly which underlies this ban. Defining what comes under the scope of a political campaign is a delicate but, ultimately, subjective judgement.

An oil company or car manufacturer advertising a “green” approach to business is a highly political act.

…

Massaging the political advertising ban

17 November, 200926 November, 2012

| 6 Comments

| advertising, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Freedom of Expression

Section 41(3) of the new Broadcasting Act, 2009 (pdf) provides:

A broadcaster shall not broadcast an advertisement which is directed towards a political end or which has any relation to an industrial dispute.

This sub-section (in conjunction with section 41(4), which contains a ban on religious advertising) re–enacts long–standing bans on political (and religious) advertising; though such a ban is unlikely to survive challenge in the European Court of Human Rights.

Dr Kevin Rafter, Head of the Department of Film and Media, in the School of Creative Arts, at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology has just written a fascinating report on Political Advertising: The regulatory Position and the Public View (here) for the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI). I’m glad to see this for at least two reasons.

First, it means that the BAI has hit the ground running. In October, the Minister announced five members of the Authority; according to section 13(7) of the Act, the quorum for meetings of the authority is five, so it has been operational since these five members were appointed by the Minister. However, the full membership is nine, and the other four members are being appointed by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.…

I spy, but I can’t show and tell

13 November, 20092 March, 2011

| No Comments

| 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.…

Defamation of a company in the still un-commenced 2009 Act

12 November, 20093 October, 2023

| 4 Comments

| Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006

In the important decision of the House of Lords in Jameel v Wall Street Journal Europe Sprl [2007] 1 AC 359, [2006] UKHL 44 (11 October 2006) the House of Lords by a majority confirmed the traditional common law rule (see South Hetton Coal Company v North Eastern News Association Limited [1894] 1 QB 133) that a trading corporation was entitled to pursue a remedy in a defamation action without being required to allege or prove that the publication complained of had caused it actual damage; it is sufficient for a trading corporation to show that it is likely to be damaged in the way of business. Rossa McMahon has some strong words to say about the retention of the rule as a matter of Irish law by section 12 of the Defamation Act, 2009 (pdf), which provides

The provisions of this Act apply to a body corporate as they apply to a natural person, and a body corporate may bring a defamation action under this Act in respect of a statement concerning it that it claims is defamatory whether or not it has incurred or is likely to incur financial loss as a result of the publication of that statement.

…

Technology, students and universities

11 November, 20092 November, 2010

| 1 Comment

| Digital Rights, Irish Society, Phones in class, Universities

There are some – related – articles in today’s Irish Independent on themes which have featured on this blog. A report published yesterday by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) shows that the number of students going to college has hit a record high (the Irish Times ran the same story under the headline that there are more students than farmers in Ireland) and that courses in science and computing are now back in favour.

However, technology is not necessarily an uncritically good thing, as is shown by the headline to another story: I’m so addicted to email, Facebook and Twitter, I have to hide it from my wife …. In that piece, reviewing The tyranny of email by John Freeman, James Delingpole owns up to his own addiction to communications technology. Of course, he is not the only person whose life is being ruined by email. Moreover, a similar addiction drives the use of mobile phones and laptops in class as increasingly popular displacement activities.

Finally, and a little more seriously, the print edition – but not, so far as I can see, the online edition (though it may in time be published in the archives of the Education section or, perhaps, of the Technology sections) – has a really interesting piece on distance learning at third level, discussing the Open University and Hibernia College.…