Category: Defamation

Where stands the Defamation Bill, 2006 on the Government’s legislative agenda?

| 2 Comments
| Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006

Houses of the Oireachtas, via their websiteWith all the coverage of Government ins and outs at Minister of State level, it was easy to miss yesterday’s announcement by Government Chief Whip Pat Carey of the Legislative Programme for the coming parliamentary session (Irish Times report | Government press release). According to the Dáil Éireann Order Paper for 22 April 2009 (pdf), this continues to include the long-delayed Defamation Bill, 2006. The Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, has recently stated his hope that the Bill would become law by the Summer, so its continuing inclusion on the Order Paper is to be welcomed. It is currently becalmed in the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights. That committee completed its work on the Tribunals of Inquiry Bill, 2005 at its last sitting earlier this month, and is scheduled (pdf; see also here) to take up the Arbitration Bill, 2008 today. To stand any chance of enactment either side of the Summer, the Defamation Bill will have to be taken next. As to that, we shall have to wait and see.…

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Cowengate and seditious libel

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| Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006, Sedition

Staute of John Wilkes, via WikipediaI wonder whether anyone has suggested that Conor Casby’s caricatures of Cowen constitute a seditious libel? It’s not that fanciful a question: the common law crime still exists, and has been used against milder criticism. But the mere fact that the question can be asked in this context demonstrates just how ridiculous the crime actually is. It’s on the way out in Australia. Now, thankfully, its days may now finally be numbered, both in Ireland and in the UK too!

As for Ireland, the Minister for Justice suggested this week that we could see the enactment of the Defamation Bill, 2006 before the summer. Since it was introduced in July 2006, the Bill has suffered more delays than Ryanair, to say nothing of the long journey to reach that point which began with the work of the Law Reform Commission in 1991 (Consultation Paper and Report on the Civil Law of Defamation; Consultation Paper and Report on the Crime of Libel). The tortuous passage of this Bill through the Oireachtas has taken so long that I won’t hold my breath, but the fact that it is likely to recommence its less-than-steady progress is welcome news nonetheless. One of the many great benefits of this enactment will be the abolition of the common law crime of seditious libel.…

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The good, the bad, and the ugly

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| advertising, Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006, Press Council, Privacy

Poster for movie 'The good, the bad and the ugly' via the Rotten Tomatoes movie website.Three stories from today’s Irish Times caught my eye. First, the good. The Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman launched their first annual report yesterday. The press industry undoubtedly did a good thing in establishing the Press Council and the Ombudsman, and yesterday’s report on the first year of operation shows the wisdom of that decision. The launch of the report is covered in the Home News section of the Irish Times, and welcomed in the lead editorial . From the report [with added links]:

Praise for complaints system after release of Press Ombudsman’s report

AGGRIEVED READERS made over 370 complaints about newspapers and magazines last year during the Press Ombudsman‘s first year of work, his annual report reveals. … Reviewing the performance of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman in their annual report published yesterday, council chairman Prof Tom Mitchell said the innovative and effective regulatory system offered significant benefits to the press and public. …

Moreover, speaking at the launch, the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, said he hoped that the long-delayed Defamation Bill, 2006 would become law by the summer, an aspiration which Prof Mitchell greeted as “wonderful news”.…

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Cowengate follow-on: a question, and more pictures at the exhibitions

| 16 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, journalism, Law, Sedition
Emerson, Lake and Palmer performing their 1971 album version of Pictures at an Exhibition

The Cowengate controversy certainly caught the imagination this week; and, by way of update to my earlier posts on the topic, I’ve collected some more links about the affair below. Perusing the coverage in print, broadcast, and online, a question has repeatedly occurred to me: for all that there was online outrage, how much of it was reflected in the print or broadcast media? My impression is that whilst online commentary reflected and often relied upon the print or broadcast media, there was (by and large) very little traffic the other way. Is this a fair assessment? Answers, please, in the comments below.

[The remainder of the post is another compendium of links relating to the Cowengate controversy].…

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Cowengate and Freedom of Expression

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| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Journalists' sources, Sedition
No image, to represent the attempt to censor the Cowen caricatures

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.…

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Cowengate: Pictures at an exhibition

| 29 Comments
| Blogging, Censorship, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Journalists' sources, Law, Sedition
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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Why are legislators so loath to repeal criminal libel provisions?

| 5 Comments
| Defamation, Defamation Bill 2006, Sedition

Article XIX logo, via their site.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.

Article XIX defamation map, via their siteUnsurprisingly, 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.…

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Article 10 and the Duke of Brunswick

| 10 Comments
| Defamation Bill 2006, ECHR, Freedom of Expression, Multiple publication

Duke of Brunswick, originally via wikipedia, but now hosted locallyWilliam VIII, Duke of Brunswick (pictured left; 1806-1884) was ruling duke of the Duchy of Brunswick from 1830 until his death. A famous eccentric, he bequeathed at least two interesting events to history. First, he lost a famous chess game to Paul Morphy (the Bobby Fischer of his era). Second, he won an infamous libel appeal which now governs internet publication at English and Irish law.

The rule in Duke of Brunswick v Harmer (1849) 14 QB 185 is that each individual publication of a libel gives rise to a separate cause of action, subject to its own limitation period; it has been followed at the highest levels (Berezovsky v Michaels [2000] UKHL 25 (11 May 2000); Dow Jones v Gutnick (2002) 210 CLR 575, [2002] HCA 56 (10 December 2002)) and in the online context (Godfrey v Demon Internet Ltd [2001] QB 201, [1999] EWHC QB 244 (26 March 1999); Dow Jones v Gutnick again). US law is different: a defamatory publication gives rise to a single cause of action for libel, which accrues at the time of the original publication, and that the statute of limitations runs from that date (see, eg, Gregoire v GP Putnam’s Sons 81 NE 2d 45 (1948)).…

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