The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog

Month: November 2022 (Page 1 of 2)

Case Law, Strasbourg: McCann and Healy v Portugal, Article 8 claim by McCanns dismissed – Catherine Arnold

In McCann and Healy v. Portugal ([2022] ECHR 725)(in French only), the Fourth Section of the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that the applicants’ Article 8 rights had not been violated by the publication of a book, a documentary programme, and a newspaper interview alleging that the applicants’ daughter had died inside their holiday flat and that the applicants had hidden her dead body and fabricated her abduction. Continue reading

SLAPPs, Serious Harm, and the Defamation Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 – Ciaran O’Shiel and Tim Carson

While coverage of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, has been amplified by several high-profile defamation actions in the UK and US in recent months, public discourse on the topic has been gathering pace since the assassination, in October 2017, of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who, at the time of her death, had 47 open defamation cases in progress against her. Continue reading

European Media Freedom Act and the protection of journalistic sources: still some way to go – Dirk Voorhoof

Blocks forming the words "free media" on a newspaperIn her State of the Union on 15 September 2021, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, declared: “Media companies cannot be treated as just another business. Their independence is essential. Europe needs a law that safeguards this independence – and the Commission will deliver a Media Freedom Act in the next year.” And on 16 September 2022 the European Commission put forward a number of measures to protect freedom and pluralism in the EU by introducing its European Media Freedom Act proposal (COM2022/457). Continue reading

The practical reality of open justice and what can be done: reflections on the Justice Committee’s new report, Part One – Judith Townend

Justice Policy Series, Part II: Open JusticeOver the past few years – especially in the first year of COVID-19 and the emergency move to remote proceedings – it was frustrating to witness bold claims about the provision of access to court hearings and reporters’ rights when the evidence on the ground was that reporters and other observers were having difficulties entering courts and accessing virtual hearings. Continue reading

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