The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog

Month: April 2010 (Page 3 of 4)

Event: Times/Matrix Bill of Rights Forum and Debate: Gray’s Inn, Tuesday 20 April 2010

The Human Rights Act has been in force for nearly a decade.  It is now at the centre of English public law – featuring in nearly half the cases in the House of Lords and the Supreme Court.  But it has not been popular.  The Conservative Party is now firmly committed to the repeal of the Human Rights Act and its replacement with a “UK Bill of Rights”.  David Cameron recently said

“we’ll scrap the Human Rights Act, which has put our police in the ridiculous position of trying to tackle the most serious crimes without putting the faces of the most wanted criminals on posters, and made it incredibly difficult for the government to deport people who they know to be threat. Instead, what we need is a modern British Bill of Rights which clearly sets out people’s rights and responsibilities, and strengthens our hand in the fight against terrorism and crime”. Continue reading

Revisited: Opinion: “Anonymity versus Openness – why do parties need to be named?” by Alison Macdonald

In this feature we revisit some older posts which may still be of current interest.  This was first posted on 2 March 2010

The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of In Re Guardian News and Media ([2010] UKSC 1; [2010] 2 WLR 325) has been met with almost universal approbation by the media and legal commentators.  For example, one of the applicants, the freedom of expression NGO “Index on Censorship” said “This is an important decision. For the very first case heard by the Supreme Court to be held under conditions of anonymity would have been a blow to the concepts of a free press and open justice, which should be at the core of the court’s operations.”.  Similar points were made in the press release of another applicant, Article 19. Continue reading

Opinion: “The next government must take a more measured approach to libel reforms” Steven Heffer

Over the past year, there has been an intensive press campaign pushing for radical reform of English libel Law. Barely a day goes by without another article by a concerned journalist pointing out the ‘chilling effect’ of our libel laws and how this is stifling freedom of speech. One academic described it well: ‘It is Goliath dreaming he is David’.

If you believe this barrage of articles, libel lawyers are winning every case they bring, whatever the merits, and are able to double their fees by acting under a conditional fee agreement (CFA). Continue reading

Case Law: Six Court of Human Rights decisions on defamation and privacy prosecutions

On 6 April 2010 the Fourth Section of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”), presided over by UK Judge Nicholas Bratza, handed down six decisions concerning defamation and privacy prosecutions in Finland.  The Fourth Section deals with English cases and its defamation and privacy decisions are of immediate relevance to English lawyers.  In addition, these decisions give an interesting insight into the ECtHR’s current approach to privacy and public interest issues.

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Law and Media – News and Events, 10 April 2010

In this  regular feature we draw attention to the last week’s law and media news and next week’s upcoming events. If readers have any news or events which they would like to draw attention to please add them by way of comments on this post.  We are particularly interested in forthcoming events which readers are interested in publicising.

News

Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls has set up a committee to examine the issues around the use of injunctions which bind the press and so-called ‘super-injunctions’. The announcement is here.  In contrast to the Libel Working Group the group is a balanced one with two claimant lawyers, two defendant lawyers, three judges and the former Chairman of the Bar.   We welcome further inquiry in this area.  Perhaps it will be the prelude to the collection of full statistics on media cases before the courts.  The committee is discussed on MediaPal@LSE Blog. Continue reading

Sir John Dyson, Freedom of Expression and Media Law

Sir John Dyson has recently been appointed as the twelfth justice of the United Kingdom Supreme Court.  When such appointments are made in the United States the judicial record of the appointee is subject to minute analysis over many months.  However, the appointment of Sir John Dyson has attracted very little media coverage in the United Kingdom.  There have been articles in the Times, the Lawyer and the Jewish Chronicle along with a profile on the UK Supreme Court Blog but no interviews, profiles or analyses of his decisions.  The contrast with the US Supreme Court is startling – on the day that Justice Stevens retirement was announced there are already hundreds of articles about the possible replacements. Continue reading

Mosley ECHR Case – the Media Submissions

We mentioned some time ago that on 1 February 2010 the President of the Court gave various media organisations permission under Rule 44(2) to intervene in Max Mosley’s application  to the European Court of Human Rights in which he seeks to contend that the United Kingdom has a positive obligation under Article 8 to require the media to give prior notice of publications which may infringe privacy rights.  The submissions were lodged last week and were the subject of various newspaper reports (see our post on Law and Media – News and Events 4 April 2010).  We have now been provided with copies of these submission which are directed to the principles involved as identified in the “questions to the parties”, found in the Statement of Facts and Issues.

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Defamation Law Issues: Publication and Hyperlinking, Crookes v Newton [updated]

The nature of the liability (if any) faced by those who “hyperlink” to defamatory material on another website has been considered by common law courts on a number of occasions but has not yet been the subject of a definitive ruling.   Should a person who draws attention to a defamatory material and provides a link be liable for the defamatory content to which attention is drawn and access provided?  Or should should liability only arise when the “hyperlinker” is given notice of the defamatory nature of the material to which a link is provided?  These questions may soon become much clearer as result of a case now pending before the Supreme Court of Canada. Continue reading

Phone Hacking Allegations and the Police Investigation

In two important articles over the Easter weekend, Nick Davies of the Guardian has reported that CPS papers in 2006 suggested that the Police investigation into Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman focused on a small number of cases and suppressed names of more prominent victims. See the articles here and here.  In the main article entitled “Police ‘ignored News of the World phone hacking evidence’.” Nick Davies reported;

“In a further blow to the official version of events, the Guardian has discovered that although police and prosecutors named only eight victims in court, material seized by police from Mulcaire and the paper’s royal reporter, Clive Goodman, contained 4,332 names or partial names of people in whom the two men had an interest, 2,978 numbers or partial numbers for mobile phones and 30 audio tapes which appear to contain an unspecified number of recordings of voicemail messages.”

Continue reading

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