cearta.ie – Page 133 – the Irish for rights

Data retention ironies

10 February, 200924 February, 2009

| data retention, Digital Rights, ECJ, EU media policy, Privacy

I can’t make up my mind whether it’s ironic or not that the European Court of Justice has upheld the Data Retention Directive on Safer Internet Day.

I’ll let Digital Rights Ireland tell the story:

European Court upholds data retention… for the time being

The European Court of Justice has given its decision today in the Irish Government challenge to the Data Retention Directive – [Case C-301/06] Ireland v. Parliament and Council (Press Release | Judgment). Unsurprisingly (in light of the Advocate General’s Opinion) it has held that the directive was properly adopted as an internal market measure (by qualified majority voting) rather than as a criminal matter (requiring unanimity). Where does this leave us and our case?

While it’s a pity to see the Directive upheld, the Government’s challenge was a very narrow one, dealing only with the essentially technical matter of the legal basis for the Directive. The Government didn’t raise and the ECJ wasn’t asked to decide on the fundamental rights issues. Indeed it expressly stated:

The Court notes at the outset that the action brought by Ireland relates solely to the choice of legal basis and not to any possible infringement by the directive of fundamental rights resulting from interference with the exercise of the right to privacy.

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Safer Internet Day, 2009

10 February, 200913 February, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Media and Communications

Safer Internet Day takes place each year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of internet and mobile phone technologies; this year, it’s today, 10 February (last year’s is blogged here). An excellent contribution to this issue is the ongoing EU Kids Online project at the LSE, funded by the EU’s Safer Internet plus Programme.

As the Irish contribution to Safer Internet Day, the Office for Internet Safety, the National Centre for Technology in Education, the National Parents Council (Primary), Childline, and the Hotline will host a joint Safer Internet Day event in Dublin to launch a TV and online awareness raising campaign focusing on the issue of cyberbullying.

Quick comment: this is all well and good, but every day should be safer internet day.…

Legal Education Symposium, 2009

9 February, 200910 February, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops, Legal Education

The Third Annual Legal Education Symposium will be hosted by UCD School of Law in the Quinn School of Business, UCD (pictured left) from 9:30am on Friday 13 March 2009 (the two previous symposia have been blogged here and here).

The morning plenary session, on Teaching Experiences in Legal Education, will be chaired by UCD School of Law’s new Dean, Prof John Jackson, and the speakers will be Prof Avrom Sherr (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies), Dr Marie-Luce Paris-Dobozy (University College Dublin) and Ms Raphael King (McCann Fitzgerald).

The afternoon plenary session, on International and European Perspectives in Legal Education, will be chaired by Prof Blanaid Clarke (University College Dublin), and the speakers will be Dr Attracta Halpin (Registrar, National University of Ireland) and Prof Frans Vanistendael (Katholieje Universiteit Leuven).

Between the plenary sessions, there will be parallel sessions on Experiential Learning, Assessment Techniques & Feedback, Clinical Legal Education, Teaching Foreign Legal Systems and (the one I’m most looking forward to) Blogs, Podcasts, Social Networks, Wikis and other social media.

Kudos to Prof Blanaid Clarke and Dr Marie-Luce Paris-Dobozy for all their hard work in putting this exciting programme together. There is no conference fee, but you must make a booking to reserve a place.…

Delay, family home, admissions

9 February, 20099 February, 2009

| No Comments

| Irish cases

Law reports from today’s Irish Times:

Case against Motor Insurers Board can go ahead
O’Flynn v Buckley (Supreme Court, 22 January 2009) Kearns J (Denham and Hardiman JJ concurring) [2009] IESC 3

The Supreme Court upheld a High Court order dismissing an application from the Motor Insurers Board (MIB) seeking to have proceedings against it separated from proceedings against another plaintiff, both of which arose out of the same accident.

‘Parties embarked on marriage, not a property transaction’
B v F (High Court, 4 December 2008) Dunne J [2008] IEHC 393

In an appeal against a Circuit Court order that 80 per cent of the value of the family home be allocated to the wife in a judicial separation, and 20 per cent to the husband, the High Court ordered that the allocation be 60 per cent to the wife and 40 per cent to the husband.

Verbal statements not admissible
DPP v Breen (Court of Criminal Appeal, 16 December 2008) Fennelly J (Budd and Hanna JJ concurring) [2008] IECCA 136

Verbal statements allegedly made by the applicant while held on the ground by members of An Garda Síochána during an operation should not have been admitted in evidence.…

The future of law reviews

9 February, 20098 August, 2009

| 7 Comments

| Legal Education, Legal Journals and Law Reviews, open access

It seems that sales of paper law reviews and journals are declining. For example, the Harvard Law Review had 8,760 subscribers for its 1979/1980 volume, but only 2,610 for its 2007/2008 volume. Now, via Volokh and Ambrogi, I learn of the appearance of the Journal of Legal Analysis, published by Harvard University Press.

It is a welcome departure in many directions. It is faculty edited, rather than student-edited; the latter is the norm in the US, but is regarded with some skepticism in the outside world. It is peer reviewed, with judgments being made on the quality of a piece not by the student editors but by experts in the relevant fields. It requires exclusive submission, which is the norm outside the US, but very different to the games in which authors and student-editors currently indulge to barter better placements. It is a general journal, publishing articles from all disciplinary perspectives and in all styles, rather than being confined to a specific legal field or theoretical approach. And, in an excellent development which will surely come to be seen as a some kind of apostasy, it has eschewed the Bluebook for a very minimalist house-style. Finally, it is open, free, digital: the articles will be published on a bespoke open-source platform and made fully available under a Creative Commons licence [specifically Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported] as soon as they are ready for publication.…

This is not just a tax form

8 February, 20096 February, 2009

| No Comments

| General

Via Irish Election:

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Proprietary Restitution

7 February, 20097 February, 2009

| 3 Comments

| Restitution

The question of when unjust enrichment can give rise to proprietary rather than personal remedies is a fraught one. Like Fermat’s Last Theorem, there may be a truly marvellous solution, but it is still elusive. Nevertheless, we are several steps closer to the proof, thanks to William Swadling‘s very important article on (the weaknesses of) Policy arguments for proprietary restitution (2008) 28 (4) Legal Studies 506-530. Here’s the abstract:

Arguments are sometimes made attempting to justify proprietary awards to unjust enrichment claimants by reference to the ‘priority’ such awards supposedly give in the defendant’s insolvency. Those justifications are variously that unjust enrichment claimants do not take insolvency risks, that the defendant’s creditors would otherwise receive an underserved windfall, and that unjust enrichment claimants occupy a position analogous to secured creditors. This paper shows that such arguments are flawed. To award unjust enrichment claimants’ proprietary rights is not to give them priority in their defendant’s insolvency but to withdraw the right from the estate available for distribution to all the unsecured creditors, whatever their order of priority. Moreover, insolvency ‘priority’ is not the only consequence of such an award. Finally, when seen for what they are, viz arguments for the award of property rights, the justifications do not, for a number of reasons, stand up.

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Signs of the Times?

6 February, 200912 February, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Law

A sign of the times, from the front page of today’s Irish Times:

Law Society starts planning for unemployment among solicitors

CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor

THE LAW Society is seeking a “career development adviser” to help solicitors and trainee solicitors find careers outside law.

In an advertisement published in The Irish Times today, the society says this person will be a “key resource for solicitors who are facing unemployment, changed working arrangements or transition to another jurisdiction or career choice”. …

The full advertisement is here, from the Law Society website.

As Law firms’ profits contract, there are increasingly frequent stories of big US and UK law firms cutting partners and associates; and in Canada, the times, they are ‘a changing in the same way. From Slaw:

Great advice for lawyers who are (or might be) looking for a job

by Dan Pinnington on February 5th, 2009

Lawyers that have been laid off or are facing a potential layoff some time this year need to plan for a new future. If you or someone you know is facing a job search, Resolve to Manage Your Job Search by Kathleen Brady is a great article that contains a step by step guide to seeking new employment.

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