Cearta.ie – Page 151 – the Irish for rights

Manhunt II and the value of persistence

Posted on 16 March, 20087 November, 2010 by Eoin

The Manhunt II saga is probably finally over in the UK (hat tip: Daithí off-blog), but perhaps there is one further stage left in Ireland.

As readers of this blog will know, last June the Irish Film Censor’s Office (IFCO), exercised its power to ban Rockstar Games’ Manhunt II, following the lead of many other countries’ authorities, including the UK’s BBFC (see here and here) earlier the same month. When an edited version was submitted, the BBFC reaffirmed their decision in October, but the the BBFCâ€™s Video Appeals Committee (VAC) allowed Rockstarâ€™s appeal in December. In turn, the BBFC appealed this decision to the High Court, which allowed the case to go ahead and then held in January 2008 that the VAC had misinterpreted the relevant legislation and had to consider the issue again (see R (on the application of the British Board of Film Classification) v Video Appeals Committee QBD (Admin) (Mr Justice Mitting) (24 January 2008)). And so the matter returned to the VAC, which this week reaffirmed its earlier decision to allow the game to be released. …

Isn’t it funny, how a bear likes honey?

Posted on 15 March, 20081 June, 2016 by Eoin

As every fan of a certain bear knows:

Isn’t it funny
How a bear likes honey?
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
I wonder why he does?

AA Milne, Winnie The Pooh (1926)

As if to prove this, the BBC is reporting that the taste of honey was just too tempting for a bear in Macedonia, which repeatedly raided a beekeeper’s hives, and has now been found guilty of theft and criminal damage (see also Daily Mail | Hearld Sun | News.com.au | NPR | NYT | Reuters | RTÉ | The Telegraph | UPI). My favourite headline from the coverage is the Syndey Morning Hearld‘s Guilty as a bear can bee.

Athough most of the commentary focuses upon the obvious comic elements of the tale, there is actually a rather serious point. …

Reforming Legal Education, or not

Posted on 14 March, 200810 March, 2009 by Eoin

Surprisingly, according to WordPress Blog Stats, the most popular page on this blog yesterday was The Future of Irish Legal Education, about the second annual Legal Education Symposium hosted by UCC‘s Faculty of Law and sponsored by Dillon Eustace Solicitors. Now, either this blog really does have a serious reader or two, or I need another stats package. Even if the latter is more likely, just in case the former is true, here are two more developments (heading, inevitably, in opposite directions) for the Legal Education junkie(s) out there.

First, Stephen Griffin of Tulane, writing on Balkinization under the heading The Carnegie Report: Can Legal Education Be Reformed? discussed subjecting the Carneige Foundation‘s report on Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (which I have discussed here and here on this blog – the second post discusses the recent Future of Legal Education Conference | excellent blog analysis here | papers here) to detailed analysis and finding it wanting. …

The House always wins

Posted on 13 March, 200824 September, 2008 by Eoin

It’s amazing how things come together sometimes. On the same day that I see an episode of Boston Legal in which an important sub-plot has a chronic gambler sue a Las Vegas casino for her losses, I read about two examples of life imitiating … well, if not art exactly, then at least entertaining television.

First, there was a story about a real-life US case in which a chronic gambler (a lawyer who should know better) is suing a Las Vegas casino for her losses. Perhaps she was influenced by this episode of Boston Legal? There, the gambling plaintiff won an excellent settlement (and the image above is of her really rather odd lawyers celebrating their unlikely victory, click on it – if you date – for more images from that episode).

Second, not too long after reading about the US lawsuit, I read a message from Prof Charles Mitchell on the Obligations Discussion Group that

in Calvert v William Hill Credit Ltd [2008] EWHC 454 (Ch) (12 March 2008) … Briggs J has declined to make a bookmaker liable for the economic loss suffered by a compulsive gambler who placed bets with them. On the facts a duty of care was owed (some interesting discussion of similar Australian cases) and the duty breached, but the claim failed on causation: the defendant only owed a duty to take care to ensure that the claimant implemented a self-exclusion arrangement, and even if this had been done, the claimant would have gone to another bookmaker and lost all his money there instead.

…

The Defamation Bill is passed by the Seanad, eventually!

Posted on 12 March, 200819 September, 2008 by Eoin

At the second time of asking, and after lengthy debate (which I will analyse in a later post) the Defamation Bill, 2006 finally passed the Seanad [Senate, or Upper House] last night (hat tip, Daithí). The full text of that final debate is now available here.

This is encouraging news, but we have only reached half-time in the long game that is Oireachtas [Parliamentary] procedure. It must now go to the Dáil [Lower House, functionally equivalent to the House of Commons], where the stakes and the profile will be higher. The stakes will be higher because there will be no further opportunity to amend the Bill once it passes. And the profile will be higher because DÃ¡il debates always have a greater impact on the public and media consciousness than do Seanad debates (for example, there is barely a whimper of recognition of the importance of last night’s debate in the mainstream media – apart from the Irish Examiner and the Irish Independent, the Irish Times Seanad Report (sub req’d) discusses an entirely different issue, with the Defamation Bill getting a single sentence near the end, and no mention at all that it had been passed, and there seems to be no mention of it on the RTÉ News website).…

Beware, unintended consequences

Posted on 11 March, 200825 March, 2009 by Eoin

Daithí has just published a wonderful post on the The strange death of criminal libel?. On the issue of criminal libel, he concludes that the Defamation Bill, 2006, currently receiving its Report and Final Stages in the Seanad even as I write this post,

will without further amendment provide for

* the repeal of the [Defamation Act], 1961 [blogged here] including Part 2 dealing with various criminal offences
* the explicit repeal of â€œthe common law offences of criminal libel, seditious libel and obscene libelâ€?
* no provisions on a new offence of the publication of gravely harmful statements
* no specific mention of blasphemy or blasphemous libel other than the repeal of s 13 (as part of the general repeal) of the 1961 Act (though I think that might mean that, especially in conjunction with the Constitution, blasphemous libel – or blasphemy, indeed – would continue to exist – but see note below on the definition of criminal libel)

And that, I believe, is good news.

I agree; it is thoroughly good news. I agree that the repeal of the 1961 Act and of various of the common law libel offences is a good thing. Moreover, the removal of the proposed replacement offence of publication of gravely harmful statements is an even better thing.…

Appeal overturns food review case

Posted on 10 March, 200812 October, 2009 by Eoin

Under the above headline, the BBC is reporting that “the Court of Appeal [in Northern Ireland] has quashed a controversial libel case, seen as a watershed for press freedom”. As already discussed on this blog (here, here and here) food critics writing restaurant reviews will usually be able to rely on the defence of fair comment. As I noted in an earlier post, the case arose out of a review of a Belfast pizzeria in the Irish News. …

What is a “publication”?

Posted on 10 March, 200812 March, 2008 by Eoin

I’ve just noticed something odd about the Defamation Bill currently before the Seanad, and I’ve been looking at it for so long now that I’m annoyed with myself that I haven’t seen this issue before. I was recently asked a very simple question:

What is a “publication” for the purposes of the Defamation Bill?

Unfortunately, that simple question doesn’t have a simple answer. There is no definition of the word in the interpretation section (section 2) which is odd since by my count the word is used no less than 71 times in the Bill. …