Author: Eoin

Dr Eoin O'Dell is a Fellow and Associate Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin.

Plans for an Irish Court of Appeal?

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| Irish Court of Appeal, Irish Court of Appeal, Irish Law, Irish Society, judges, Politics

According to an article by Paul Cullen on the front page of today’s Irish Times, there are moves under way to create a new Court of Appeal for Ireland. This can only be welcome news, both for litigants and for judges.

Even though the nine judges of the Supreme Court can sit now in divisions of three, it can still take up to two years or more for an appeal to be heard; and a Court of Appeal that relieved that backlog of cases and allowed litigants’ appeals to be heard and decided more quickly would undoubtedly be good news for litigants. Moreover, too many cases come to the Court to allow it to do its work as a Supreme Court: at present, it hears more than 300 cases a year, compared with no more than 100 in the US Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Canada, the High Court of Australia, and the House of Lords (which, in its judicial capacity, is the UK’s highest court). In those jurisdictions, there is an automatic right to appeal to Court of Appeal level from cases at High Court level, so litigants always get the option of an appeal; but there is an appeal from Court of Appeal level to the court of final appeal only in cases where that latter court is persuaded that there are special or exceptional reasons for the appeal to be heard.…

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Political Advertising, the BCI, and Trócaire

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| advertising, Freedom of Expression, Irish Society, Media and Communications, Politics

Trocaire logo, from their siteTrócaire is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It runs several campaigns challenging the root causes of poverty and injustice. And every year during Lent (BBC | wikipedia), to raise both much need funds and public consciousness about its work, it runs a Lenten campaign, distributing collection boxes through churches and so on to schools and homes in the hope that the boxes will be filled during Lent and their contents donated to Trócaire after Easter. The image on this year’s box is discussed here by Brian Greene); and the advertising campaign that goes with it focuses on gender inequality to promote equal rights for women and men around the world. You can view the television advertisment here. However, that advertising campaign is now getting Trócaire into hot water. Various newspapers report this morning (Irish Examiner | Irish Independent | Irish Times) that the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has banned these advertisments. …

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Academic freedom under threat?

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| Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression, Universities

Two recent Oxbridge stories caught my eye. First, Daithí has a characteristically perceptive and wide-ranging post on a demand by students in Oxford for the dismissal of Prof David Coleman because of his (unpopular) connections with Migration Watch. The whole point of academic freedom (DHI | Human Rights Watch | wikipedia) is the right to think unpopular thoughts. They can be wrong, or wrongheaded – many, if not most, ideas fall into this category. But the fundamental cornerstone of academic enquiry is that they can be thought. Once articulated, they can be met, and their wrongness or wrongheadedness demonstrated. Student Action for Refugees (STAR) would do better to counter Migration Watch in debate and argument, and thus to persuade those still open to persuasion, than shrilly to seek Prof Coleman’s dismissal and in the process potentially turn off the persuadeble middle ground.

Second, in Cambridge, the boot is on the other foot. Legal Scribbles reports (following on from an earlier post) that students have been questioned under caution by the police on suspicion of having committed an offence contrary to s5 of the Public Order Act 1986, for having published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.…

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Senator Norris and the Defamation Bill

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| Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

Senator NorrisThe Defamation Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) is currently being debated in the Seanad (Senate). The system of giving a Bill various readings (BBC | wikipedia) refers to an ancient practice in the House of Commons by which a Bill would actually be read out, first when it was introduced (the first reading), again whilst it was being debated (the second reading), and finally in its form for enactment after amendment (the third reading). More recently, a further stage, a committee stage, is often interposed between second and third readings: if the second reading debates the general principles of a Bill, then the detailed section-by-section scrutiny will take place at committee stage. Bills are usually initiated in the Dáil (lower House), and then reviewed in the Seanad, but the Government has in the last few years demonstrated a tendency to introduce Bills in the Seanad first, often for the purposes of detailed consideration and debate before being sent to the Dáil. The reason for this system of various readings of Bills in both Houses of the Oireachtas (ie, the Parliament) is to allow Bills to be publicly scrutinized and debated, and the Defamation Bill is currently undergoing that process with a detailed committee stage in the Seanad in which Senator David Norris (Ind, representing the University of Dublin (Trinity College); pictured left; website | blog) has made several energetic interventions – in the process, he has made one excellent point and one wrong-headed one.…

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Defamation Bill in the Seanad, or, where are the ISPs?

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| Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

Seanad chamberThe Defamation Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) was introduced in the Seanad (Senate; pictured left) on 7 July 2006, and its passage through the Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament) can be followed here. The second reading began on 6 December 2006 with a set-piece debate, of rather predictable if occasionally interesting speeches, which rather got lost in the coverage of that day’s Budget; and the committee stage continued on 20 and 28 February 2007 with some conventional skirmishing and the occasional grand-standing set-piece battle. The terms of the Bill were outlined briefly in my previous post, so I’d like in this post and the next to turn to a consideration of some of the comments made on the Bill during the Seanad debates so far.

Senator Joanna Tuffy (Labour) (website | blog) suggested an amendment to the Bill to protect those, such as secretaries, who type letters on behalf of others, so that if the letter turns out to be defamatory, the plaintiff has to sue the author not the secretary (see 186 Seanad Debates cols 288-290 (20 February 2007); html | pdf). …

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Defamation Bill slopes towards enactment

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| Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

Cathaoirleach's BellThe Defamation Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) was before the Seanad again during the week. In my next post, I’ll consider some of the points made during that debate; in this post, by way of background, I want to set out the Bill’s main provisions. It aims to modernise Irish defamation law, and it is certainly an advance on what is there now. However, it is still ungenerous, and it remains to be seen whether its passage through the Houses of the Oireachtas will improve it (or, God help us, not!).…

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