Skip to content

cearta.ie

the Irish for rights

Menu
  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Contact
  • Research

Multiple publication; multiple reform?

25 October, 201116 November, 2015
| No Comments
| Defamation, Libel tourism, Multiple publication

Multiple PublicationAt common law, the rule in Duke of Brunswick v Harmer (1849) 14 QB 185 established that each individual publication of a libel gives rise to a separate cause of action, subject to its own limitation period; hence, if the same publication is read many years later, that is a new publication giving rise to a new cause of action. It has been abolished in Ireland by section 11 of the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here), which provides:

(1) Subject to subsection (2), a person has one cause of action only in respect of a multiple publication.

(2) A court may grant leave to a person to bring more than one defamation action in respect of a multiple publication where it considers that the interests of justice so require.

(3) In this section “multiple publication” means publication by a person of the same defamatory statement to 2 or more persons (other than the person in respect of whom the statement is made) whether contemporaneously or not.

Moreover section 3 of the Rules of the Superior Courts (Defamation) 2009 (SI No 511 of 2009) provides for procedures relating to applications under section 11, though I am not aware of any caselaw yet on that section.…

Read More »

Better angels, undesirable devils, and the judicial pay amendment

24 October, 20116 November, 2016
| No Comments
| Irish Society, judges, Open Justice, The Rule of Law

Why Vote NoEarlier this evening, I did an interview on The Last Word with Matt Cooper on Today fm concerning next Thursday’s referendum to amend the Constitution to add a mechanism to allow judges’ salaries to be reduced. The arguments in favour of the principle are very strong: as a matter of fairness and balance, when other public servants are suffering pay reductions, there is no good reason why judges should not do so too. But that is not the only principle at stake here: the independence of the judiciary is an important aspect of the rule of law. Any implementation of the principle of reduction in judicial salaries in line with other public servants ought to be done without doing violence to the principle of the independence of the judiciary. As I said on The Last Word with Matt Cooper this evening, I do not believe that the proposed amendment manages to maintain this balance.

The amendment proposes that “provision may … made by law to make proportionate reductions to the remuneration of judges” in certain circumstances. Leaving aside those circumstances, this simply allows the reduction of judicial salaries to be effected by legislation, which in the ordinary way is proposed by Government.…

Read More »

Bugs and Beasts Before the Law

24 October, 201124 October, 2011
| 2 Comments
| General

In Isn’t it funny, how a bear likes honey?, I considered the conviction of a Macedonian bear for theft of honey and criminal damage to a beekeeper’s hives; and in Are some goats more equal than others? I noted that a goat was being held on suspicion of committing an armed robbery in Nigeria. Now I find another story in the same vein:

Bugs and Beasts Before the Law

Murderous pigs sent to the gallows, sparrows prosecuted for chattering in Church, a gang of thieving rats let off on a wholly technical acquittal – theoretical psychologist and author Nicholas Humphrey explores the strange world of medieval animal trials.

… A few years ago I lighted on a book, first published in 1906, with the surprising title The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals [pdf] by E.P.Evans, author of Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture, Bugs and Beasts before the Law, etc., etc. The frontispiece showed an engraving of a pig, dressed up in a jacket and breeches, being strung up on a gallows in the market square of a town in Normandy in 1386; the pig had been formally tried and convicted of murder by the local court.

…

Read More »

Michael Geist – SCC Stands Up for the Internet: No Liability for Linking

19 October, 2011
| No Comments
| General

An excellent comment by Michael Geist on Crookes v Newton:

This decision is amongst the most important the Supreme Court has issued involving the Internet. The court again demonstrates that it recognizes the importance of the Internet for freedom of expression and for the need to promote the ability to use the technology to disseminate information. The court clearly understood both the importance of linking as well as the technology behind a link. The decision rightly places responsibility for defamatory speech where it belongs – with the person who posted the content. There is still the ability to commence legal action against that person, but subjecting anyone that links to allegedly defamatory content to potential liability would have been very dangerous.

via michaelgeist.ca
…

Read More »

Lallands Peat Worrier: “Immanuel Kant should be banned…”

19 October, 2011
| No Comments
| General

“Immanuel Kant should be banned…”

I’m struggling to think of the last time I heard anyone in Scottish politics say “I believe in free expression“, without following it with a “but”, or some other pious caveat, justifying illiberal legislation to put peoples’ tongues in the vice, fetter their fingers, or otherwise curtail free speech. This is not a uniquely Scottish phenomenon, of course. The whole rhetoric of balancing rights against one another lends itself to this sort of discourse, where one can simultaneously avow your watery support for a range of competing propositions – free speech, protection of minorities from “hate”, public order – and having recognised a range of entangled interests, and completed the relevant obeisances to all sides, unembarrassedly legislate, untroubled by dissonances as you obliterate the substance of liberty.  All of which is done with a greasy air of self-justification and secular homily; a ludicrous pantomime parade of beetled brows and serious faces, as pompous moral vocabularies are dusted off to justify a range of reactionary reforms.  Politicians assume grave airs to have their photos snapped by Amnesty International – all too happy to condemn repressive regimes abroad for jailing bloggers, writers, speakers – but seem to struggle to find the time even to shrug about domestic outrages.

…

Read More »

Hyperlinks and defamation in the Supreme Court of Canada

19 October, 2011
| 1 Comment
| General

Crookes v Newton 2011 SCC 47 (CanLII) (19 October 2011)

From the headnote (emphasis added):

To prove the publication element of defamation, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant has, by any act, conveyed defamatory meaning to a single third party who has received it. Traditionally, the form the defendant’s act takes and the manner in which it assists in causing the defamatory content to reach the third party are irrelevant. Applying this traditional rule to hyperlinks, however, would have the effect of creating a presumption of liability for all hyperlinkers. This would seriously restrict the flow of information on the Internet and, as a result, freedom of expression.

Hyperlinks are, in essence, references, which are fundamentally different from other acts of “publication”. Hyperlinks and references both communicate that something exists, but do not, by themselves, communicate its content. They both require some act on the part of a third party before he or she gains access to the content. The fact that access to that content is far easier with hyperlinks than with footnotes does not change the reality that a hyperlink, by itself, is content neutral. Furthermore, inserting a hyperlink into a text gives the author no control over the content in the secondary article to which he or she has linked.

…

Read More »

For consumers, three is a magic number

19 October, 201119 October, 2011
| No Comments
| Consumer
Consumer Protection Cartoon

Like the old joke about buses, you wait for ages, then three come along at once. So it is with consumer protection initiatives. There have been three in the past week. First, the EU Commission last week proposed a new Directive on Consumer Rights, which would merge various existing Directives and update and modernise EU consumer protection rules (hot on the heels of a slightly broader proposed Common European Sales Law). Second, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation yesterday announced the enactment of a comprehensive Consumer Rights Act, implementing the Report (pdf) of the Sales Law Review Group. As with the new Directive, the new Act will also merge various existing Irish pieces of legislation, and then update and strengthen Irish consumer protection law. Third, the Central Bank of Ireland today published a revised Consumer Protection Code (pdf), to ensure that consumers are adequately protected in their dealings with financial institutions. This is all very welcome, and I look forward to when these three initiatives come into force.…

Read More »

Philosophical questions about fascism and free speech

17 October, 201119 October, 2011
| 6 Comments
| Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression

Logos for Phil, BNP, TCD

Last Tuesday, in the My Education Week column in the Irish Times, Paddy Prendergast, the Provost of Trinity College Dublin (and thus my boss) wrote a diary of his working week. This is how his entry for Wednesday, October 5th, began (with added links):

I meet with the Senior Dean and Dean of Students to discuss the student debating society, the Philosophical Society’s invitation to the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, to participate in a debate later this month. The issue has received considerable media coverage, but more importantly there are objections from our own college community. Freedom of speech is an important principle as is that of self-governance of student societies. We agree to meet with the Philosophical Society and consider this serious matter further. …

This seemed positive enough. Both freedom of speech and student society self-governance would pull in favour of allowing Nick Griffin to speak. Don’t get me wrong: Griffin’s views are loathsome, and the BNP is a hateful organisation, but I defend their right to spew their foul and horrid bile simply so that it can be exposed for the obnoxious and indefensible nonsense that it is. But this debate is not to be.…

Read More »

Posts pagination

Previous 1 … 59 60 61 … 183 Next

Welcome

Me in a hat

Hi there! Thanks for dropping by. I’m Eoin O’Dell, and this is my blog: Cearta.ie – the Irish for rights.


“Cearta” really is the Irish word for rights, so the title provides a good sense of the scope of this blog.

In general, I write here about private law, free speech, and cyber law; and, in particular, I write about Irish law and education policy.


Academic links
Academia.edu
ORCID
SSRN
TARA

Subscribe

  • RSS Feed
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Recent posts

  • A trillion here, a quadrillion there …
  • A New Look at vouchers in liquidations
  • Defamation reform – one step backward, one step forward, and a mis-step
  • As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted … the Defamation (Amendment) Bill, 2024 has been restored to the Order Paper
  • Defamation in the Programme for Government – Updates
  • Properly distributing the burden of a debt, and the actual and presumed intentions of the parties: non-theories, theories and meta-theories of subrogation
  • Open Justice and the GDPR: GDPRubbish, the Courts Service, and the Defence Forces

Archives by month

Categories by topic

Licence

Creative Commons License

This blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. I am happy for you to reuse and adapt my content, provided that you attribute it to me, and do not use it commercially. Thanks. Eoin

Credit where it’s due

Some of those whose technical advice and help have proven invaluable in keeping this show on the road include Dermot Frost, Karlin Lillington, Daithí Mac Síthigh, and
Antoin Ó Lachtnáin. I’m grateful to them; please don’t blame them :)

Thanks to Blacknight for hosting.

Feeds and Admin

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

© cearta.ie 2025. Powered by WordPress