cearta.ie – Page 39 – the Irish for rights

As reported by Ruadhán Mac Cormaic in yesterday’s Irish Times, the Irish Supreme Court is to make written submissions available to the public. This is an excellent development – the public’s right of access to court documents is a very important aspect of the open administration of justice. According to Ruadhán:

In a direction to lawyers, posted on the Courts Service website, Ms Justice Denham said the new practice would apply to all submissions sent to the Supreme Court Office as of yesterday. The documents will only be available once the relevant appeal hearing begins.

(Para updated 8 October 2013: updates underlined) I found it hard to track down the relevant Practice Direction: when I wrote this post it is was not yet either on the Courts Service News page or the Supreme Court Practice Directions page, though it is now available on the Practice Directions page. However, on twitter, Ruadhán pointed me to the current Legal Diary (doc | pdf), where I found the following Practice Direction:

THE SUPREME COURT

PRACTICE DIRECTION

Written Submissions

1. Subject to directions of the Supreme Court and the following paragraphs of this direction, a copy of written submissions lodged in or transmitted to the Supreme Court Office or handed in to the Supreme Court on or after the 7th October, 2013 in relation to, or in the course of, the hearing of any appeal or matter will be made available to any person requesting same, on payment of any fee chargeable for such copy.

…

International Blasphemy Day

1 October, 20131 October, 2013

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| Blasphemy

Yesterday was International Blasphemy Day (Facebook | twitter). According to a post I came across late yesterday evening on Media Law Prof Blog, the day

… was instituted after the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, came under fire in 2005 for publishing twelve cartoons that mocked the Prophet Mohammed. More here from the Campaign for Free Expression, here from the Telegraph, here from the Huffington Post.

In honour of the day (with apologies that it’s a day late), here’s an extract from a post on the Irish Philosophy blog about Ireland’s first recorded blasphemy trial:

Thomas Emlyn spent fourteen of his seventy-eight years in Dublin (1691-1705), but they were easily the most eventful of his life. He wrote his An Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ as a result of events there. The result was his appearance as the … [defendant] in what “appears to have been the first reported blasphemy prosecution in Irish law” (UK Select Committee on Religious Offences in England and Wales First Report). …

blasphemy … was defined in the statute as … “a scornful and spiteful reproach uttered in designed contempt of God;” … The jury was pressured and despite his book not reaching the standard for blasphemy, and his authorship remaining unproven (the printer swore that he didn’t know the writing), Emlyn was found guilty.

…

The future of the Seanad

27 September, 20131 October, 2013

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| Irish Law, Irish Society

Seanad, via Oireachtas.ie The following appears under the above heading in the letters page of today’s Irish Times:

Sir,

As academics engaged in research in a variety of different disciplines we strongly advocate a No vote in the upcoming referendum on Seanad abolition.

We believe that to tackle the major issues affecting our society, it is vital that there should be more scrutiny of legislation and executive accountability, not less; that the level of vocational expertise in our parliamentary system should be strengthened, not eliminated; and that political participation by citizens in deliberative democratic processes should be intensified, not reduced. While the Seanad, as currently constituted, is not sufficiently equipped to deliver on these ideals, the reform proposals set forth in the Seanad Bill 2013 proposed by Senators Feargal Quinn and Katherine Zappone go some way to meeting them.

By broadening the nomination process and giving all citizens the right to elect our senators, the Quinn-Zappone Bill seeks to implement the real value of bicameralism in providing space for reflection and debate by two sets of qualitatively different representatives. By increasing the Seanad’s powers of scrutiny in a range of areas and providing for the right of the people to force the Seanad to debate on an issue of national importance, this reform package has the capacity to bring new expertise and scrutiny into the parliamentary system and to provide a channel for citizens to express their views, their ideas and their suggestions for change, thus strengthening the foundations of democracy in our country.

…

Pornography, cyberbullying, and internet regulation

30 July, 20138 October, 2013

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| Censorship, Cyberlaw, Digital Rights

The image, left, shows the result of a poll on TheJournal.ie which ran last Tuesday: the question was whether Ireland follow the UK’s lead in blocking online porn? And the results show a slight majority (54%) against doing so. This comes in the wake of proposals from UK Prime Minister David Cameron to compel internet service providers to block pornographic material by default.

To the age old question “will no-one please think of the children?“, Cameron (perhaps rather cynically) rushes to answer: “I will”:

I want Britain to be the best place to raise a family. … Where children are allowed to be children. … Protecting the most vulnerable in our society; protecting innocence; protecting childhood itself. … I will do whatever it takes to keep our children safe.

Predictably, there were calls for similar Irish developments. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte, has blown cold then hot then cold again on the issue. Writing in TheJournal.ie, Ashley Balbirnie, Chief Executive of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (the ISPCC), is very critical of Rabbitte’s vacillation, and makes the case for following Cameron’s lead:

… viewing graphic and violent pornographic material online is extremely harmful to children and we believe strongly that introducing such filters in Ireland is an option worth at least some serious consideration.

…

The Chief Justice, the Council of State, and Article 26 References to the Supreme Court

29 July, 201318 May, 2016

| 1 Comment

| Blasphemy, Irish Supreme Court, Politics

Article 31.1 of the Constitution provides that there “shall be a Council of State to aid and counsel the President on all matters on which the President may consult the said Council …”. The image, left, is a painting of the Council of State hanging in the Council of State Room in Áras an Uachtaráin, the President’s official residence. One matter on which the President must consult the Council of State is provided by Article 26.1.1:

The President may, after consultation with the Council of State, refer any Bill to which this Article applies to the Supreme Court for a decision on the question as to whether such Bill or any specified provision or provisions of such Bill is or are repugnant to this Constitution or to any provision thereof.

On foot of this power, President Higgins convened a meeting of the Council of State to consider whether to refer the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013 to the Supreme Court under Article 26; and that meeting is due to begin right about now (see: Irish Examiner here, here, and here | Irish Independent here and here | Irish Times here, here, and here | RTÉ | TheJournal.ie…

Some reflections on @RuadhanIT’s excellent @IrishTimes series on the Irish Supreme Court

11 July, 201318 May, 2016

| 1 Comment

| Irish cases, Irish Law, Irish Society, Irish Supreme Court, Judicial Appointments

In Brown v Allen 344 US 443, 540 (1953), Robert H Jackson, Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States said of that Court:

We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.

Supreme Courts’ quality of finality, on matters of the gravest import, fascinates observers; and, giving us a chance to go behind that finality closer to home, Ruadhán Mac Cormaic (@RuadhanIT) has an excellent series of articles on the Irish Supreme Court in the Irish Times. Here (with some added links and a few comments) is a flavour of his coverage over the last few days.

Inside Ireland’s Supreme Court: “… Nearly all judges resist labels such as liberal or conservative, pro-State or pro-plaintiff and dismiss attempts to extrapolate from their background a predisposition to decide a case a certain way. …”. Nevertheless, it is a persistent trope amongst watchers of the US Supreme Court (and of the UK courts, though perhaps less so), and it is likely to become so for the Irish Supreme Court as well, if the planned Court of Appeal allows the Supreme Court to become more of a constitutional court in the mo(u)ld of its US counterpart.…

University strategic planning – but where are the tactics?

10 July, 2013

| 1 Comment

| Universities

University strategic planning, by MacLeod Cartoons

I’ve used the above image before, but it’s too good not to use again. University strategic planning is required by section 34 of the Universities Act, 1997 (also here). At best, it is a necessary evil; at worst, it borders on the absurd.

Strategy is all about long-term planning; tactics are all about the individual steps to get there. Most university strategic plans tend to be long on strategy but short on tactics: they are usually good on long-term ambition, but weak on short- and medium- term steps to achieve that ambition. A good plan would outline the detailed tactics necessary to achieve the strategy – and if the tactics can’t be planned, that should demonstrate that the strategy is unsound.

Sometimes, the best strategy is “steady as she goes”, but the statutory requirement for strategic planning carries with it an unexamined impetus for change for its own sake; and, whilst both strategy and tactics carry their own risks, strategic planning for the sake of strategic planning carries the risk of too much change for no reason other than the impetus for change supposedly demanded by the corporatist strategic-planning cycle.

The educationandstuff blog today captures (for DCU) what I think about the process:

A Strategy Blitz

… Most strategic plans make hard reading.

…

40 winks that converted €62.40 into €222,222,222.22; or mistaken payments and the law of restitution, again – updated

12 June, 201320 August, 2019

| 3 Comments

| Mistaken payments, Restitution

Man asleep on computer keyboard, by Scott McLeod, via Flickr

The following story caught my eye in the news today:

Cashier asleep with finger on keyboard launched a €222,222,222 transaction

… a German bank employee … had intended to transfer €62.40 from a retired employee’s account but “momentarily fell asleep” and ended up transferring €222,222,222.22 … which was only spotted and rectified by bank staff hours later.

Sadly for the recipients, the bank was perfectly entitled to rectify the error: as I have said on previous occasions on this blog, the recipients of the €222m would have had to pay the money back. See A bank error in your favour is not a gift from God; Santa, Scrooge, and overactive ATMs; Bank errors are not a licence to gamble.

The terms and conditions of the contracts between banks customers usually allow banks to reverse such erroneous transfers. Even if the contract doesn’t apply, or if the transfer cannot be electronically reversed, there are likely to be non-contractual claims to restitution on the grounds that the customers were unjustly enriched by the mistaken payments. Worse, if the recipients decide that the money would be much better off resting in their other accounts, this would constitute theft. There is no electronic philosopher’s stone that can transmute €62.40 into €222,222,222.22 and leave the recipient secure in receiving the latter amount – unfortunately.…