cearta.ie – Page 158 – the Irish for rights

The University of Washington and Lee‘s branch of the American Constitution Society hosted a great Supreme Court Discussion Panel, Looking Back and Moving Forward, today to recap the US Supreme Court’s 2006-2007 term and to preview its 2007-2008 term. I’ve blogged the proceedings here, here and here.

By way of bonus, here’s a link to videos of two good roundups of the Supreme Court’s last term, with equivalent video previews of the forthcoming term here (ACS) and here (Federalist Society).…

The Holocaust Memorial Lecture, 2007

18 October, 200727 January, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops

My colleagues in the Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, the Herzog Centre for Jewish and Near Eastern Religion, Trinity College Dublin, and the Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland (HETI) will host their annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture for 2007 on Thursday, 25 October 2007 at 7:30pm in the Emmet Theatre (Room 2037) of the Arts Building (map here), Trinity College Dublin; and all are welcome to attend.

The speaker will be Professor Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland (pictured left), and he will speak on the topic of

The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda in Germany and the Middle East during World War Two and the Holocaust

Jeffrey Herf is Professor of History at the University of Maryland and currently a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He has published extensively on the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and on West and East Germany during the Cold War; and his most recent book, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust (Harvard University Press, 2006) (cover pictured left) examines the Nazi regime’s anti-semitism and its public defense of a policy of “exterminating” Europe’s Jews.

Further details are available from Prof John Horne, Department of History, TCD; Dr Zuleika Rodgers, Herzog Centre, TCD; and Lynn Jackson, (HETI).…

Deep Fried Oreos

17 October, 2007

| No Comments

| Media and Communications

A story that caught my eye in the New York Times a little while ago. During this year’s Great Indiana State Fair, punters could still purchase seep-fried oreos, …

… but not in trans fats!

Only in the land of the free and the home of the brave. The New York Times article (sub req’d) provided:

Yes, Deep-Fried Oreos, but Not in Trans Fats

The deep-fried Combo Plate may be a little more healthful this year at the Great Indiana State Fair. So say the fairâ€™s leaders, who, taking a step rarely seen in the realm of corn dogs and fried pickles, have banned oils with trans fats from all the fryers that line the grounds here. …

This is a slice of heaven,â€? said Ryan Howell, 31, as he cradled his Combo Plate, which, for the record, consists of one battered Snickers bar, two battered Oreos and a battered Reeseâ€™s Peanut Butter Cup â€” all deep-fried in oil that is trans-fat free, thank goodness. …

Jeremy Orme, who runs Fried Creations, the home of the Combo Plate, introduced a new item at this yearâ€™s fair: deep-fried Pepsi. He rolls out his Pepsi-based dough, dips it in a batter made with Pepsi and deep-fries it for 90 seconds.

…

To do a great right

10 October, 200712 July, 2016

| 2 Comments

| Blasphemy, Cinema, television and theatre, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

And I beseech you,
Wrest once the law to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong,
And curb this cruel devil of his will.

The Merchant of Venice: Act 4, Scene I

I think it is rather as though Jack Straw has been seduced by Bassanio’s arguments. For, to do a great right by the gay community, he has this week chosen to do what he must regard as no more than a little wrong to the right to freedom of expression.

The UK already has legislation on incitement to racial hatred (as does Ireland, also here), it has recently extended that legislation to cover incitement to religious hatred, and just this week Straw announced the UK government’s intention to extend it further to cover incitement to hatred based on sexual orientation. …

Reforming Irish Legal Education?

9 October, 200723 June, 2011

| 3 Comments

| Competition Law, Irish Law, Legal Education, Universities

Change in the structure of legal education is in the air. It is one of the themes of the Second Legal Education Symposium which will be hosted by the Faculty of Law, University College Cork, on Friday 7 December 2007. As with last yearâ€™s symposium, this yearâ€™s will also be generously sponsored by Dillon Eustace, Solicitors.

This symposium will bring together various parties with an interest in legal education including students, teachers, researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and more – in the hope of enriching the debate and informing future decisions. The theme of the morning session will concern the undergraduate curriculum and will include a key-note address by Professor Joseph W. Singer (Harvard) describing recent (and much discussed and debated) curriculum reforms there. The afternoon session will focus on the implications of Fourth Level Ireland for Law Schools.

Harvard isnâ€™t the only US law school to think about curriculum reform; there is in fact a robust discussion of these issues ongoing at present in many US law schools, including Yale, Stanford and Vanderbilt; and another exciting change has been made by up-and-coming University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in their Law Firm Program. Nor are these the only kinds of curriculum reform being contemplated.…

If t-shirts could talk …

3 October, 200731 July, 2013

| 8 Comments

| Freedom of Expression, US Supreme Court

… they might get you in trouble. Oh, wait a minute – they do!

Say you wanted to attend a political rally to indicate your disapproval of the speaker in a way that made your position clear but did not in fact disrupt the proceedings in any way. Why not try the age-old slogan t-shirt? Well, that’s what Jeff and Nicole Rank did when they attended a Fourth of July appearance in 2004 by President Bush at the West Virginia State Capitol wearing t-shirts critical of the president (see picture, left). There the story should have ended; but it didn’t. The Ranks were promptly arrested – and handcuffed – for their troubles! But the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represented them in a case against the White House (that didn’t seem to get nearly enough coverage at the time, though there’s a wonderful article about it in the New Republic), arguing:

Two Americans went to see their president and to express their disagreement with his policies respectfully and peacefully. They were arrested at the direction of federal officials. That is precisely what the First Amendment was adopted to prevent.

Don’t take the ACLU’s word for it; the Supreme Court of the United States has said so too, in a famous First Amendment case called Cohen v California 403 U.S.…

Press Ombudsman

2 October, 200710 December, 2012

| 7 Comments

| Defamation, Press Council

I concluded yesterday’s post by wondering what the impact of the Defamation Bill, 2006 might be upon the decision of Charlton J in Leech v Independent Newspapers (High Court, unreported, 28 June 2007). After that decision was handed down, the Department of Justice confirmed that the Bill, which failed to complete its passage through the Oireachtas during the lifetime of the last government, is to be re-entered on the order paper of the new Seanad in the Autumn (see Irish Times (sub req’d)). Though it is a flawed Bill, it is much better than the existing position; so this would be good news, were it not for the fact that the Irish Times predicts the Bill will be altered to reflect a more minimalist approach to libel reform.

Whatever else is excised, it is certain that the provisions relating to the Press Council and Press Ombudsman will be retained, not least because the membership of the Council was announced early in the Summer, and the Ombudsman has recently been appointed …

Defamation, privilege, and a public interest defence, in the Irish High Court

1 October, 200731 July, 2016

| 16 Comments

| Defamation, Freedom of Expression

At the end of June, communications consultant Monica Leech lost a high-profile libel action against the Irish Independent; in essence, the jury found that the article in question by Frank Kahn did not bear the defamatory meanings which she had sought to attribute to it. Given the profile of the case, there was much media (Breaking News | Irish Independent | Irish Times (sub req’d) | Irish Times (sub req’d) | RTÉ) and online (Blurred Keys | JC Skinner | Of Laws and Men | Our Man in Gdansk) reaction.

However, there is more to the case than the newsworthiness of a high profile libel loss. In fact, Mr Justice Charleton (pictured above left) made an important ruling during the course of the trial, which as Mary Carolan pointed out in the Irish Times the following Saturday gives more leeway to media on libel defence (sub req’d). The Best of Both Worlds described it as a slight gain for free speech. I think it is rather more than that. I think that it is an important affirmation of the acceptance into Irish law of a defence (which the judge called a “public interest” defence) which has been developing and strengthening elsewhere in the common law world.…