Tag: freedom of expression
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Robert Craig: The Peter Hain Case: The Effect of Article IX
Peter Hain’s decision to breach an interim injunction granted by the Court of Appeal in the case of ABC v Telegraph Media Group has caused serious concern. It is one of the cardinal rules in Parliament that members should not interfere in ongoing legal proceedings and Hain did not wait until the end of the…
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Jelena Gligorijevic: Breaching Injunctions in Parliament: An Unconstitutional Abuse of Parliamentary Privilege
Two days after the Court of Appeal granted an interim injunction restraining reportage of harassment allegations against a high-profile businessman (ABC v Telegraph Media Group Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 2329), Lord Hain named the individual involved, in the House of Lords under parliamentary privilege. This enabled the media to identify him in their reporting on…
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Jacob Rowbottom: Cakes, Gay Marriage and the Right against Compelled Speech
In the high-profile decision in Lee v Ashers, the Supreme Court had to consider a customer’s rights against discrimination along with the baker’s right to freedom of expression. In its finding for the baker, the Supreme Court took an important step in developing a domestic doctrine against ‘compelled speech’. While the outcome of the case…
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Chintan Chandrachud: Bittersweet Judgment: The UK Supreme Court in the Ashers Baking Case
Bakeries in the United States and the United Kingdom have become the latest sites for contestation about rights. Last December, the US Supreme Court upheld a Christian baker’s right to refuse to bake a cake for the wedding of a gay couple in the Masterpiece Cakeshop Case. The UK Supreme court has now held, on…
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Eliska Pirkova: ‘Polish Death Camps’ and the Quest for ‘the Truth’
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Polish Parliament approved an amendment to the National Remembrance Institute Act (NRIA), which establishes the criminal liability for a) “publicly ascribing responsibility and co-responsibility to the Polish People or State for Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich” and b) “grossly reducing the responsibility of the actual perpetrators of these…
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Jacob Rowbottom: McCutcheon and the US campaign finance laws: Responsiveness to money or people?
The decision of the US Supreme Court in McCutcheon v Federal Election Commission represents another judicial gutting of American campaign finance laws. Following Citizens Unitedv Federal Election Commission (2010), the ruling makes another inroad into the law, with a 5-4 majority by finding a cap on the aggregate level of political donations to violate the…
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Jacob Rowbottom: Laws, Miranda and the Democratic Justification for Expression
The Divisional Court’s decision in the David Miranda case has provoked much controversy and debate about freedom of the press and national security issues. About halfway through his judgment, Laws LJ makes a number of comments about the justifications for freedom of expression and media freedom. While these may not be the most pressing or…
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Jeff King: Deference, Dialogue and Animal Defenders International
In Animal Defenders International, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the British ban on political advertising in the broadcast media (s.321 Communications Act 2003), consistently with the judgments of the UK House of Lords and High Court, but in an apparent departure from its previous caselaw in the VgT (Verein gegen Tierfabrik v. Switzerland,…
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Jacob Rowbottom: A surprise ruling? Strasbourg upholds the ban on paid political ads on TV and Radio
The European Court of Human Rights has given its decision in Animal Defenders International , holding that the ban on political advertising on the broadcast media does not violate Article 10. I had been convinced that the Strasbourg Court, following earlier decisions in Switzerland and Norway, would come to the opposite conclusion – but I…
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David Erdos: Mustn’t Ask, Mustn’t Tell: Could New EU Data Laws Ban Historical and Legal Research?
Even with the advent of Web 2.0, data protection law is still often seen as technical and only narrowly applicable. Technical abstruseness aside (and data protection’s reputation here is certainly deserved!), this understanding couldn’t be more wrong. The existing European data protection framework actually has a breath-taking scope. It applies to anything done electronically with…