Article 19 and the “Right to Blog”

The freedom of expression NGO, Article 19, has published a policy paper on the “Right to Blog” [pdf].  Article 19 proposes a set of recommendations to state actors and policy makers about what they should do to promote and protect the rights of bloggers domestically and internationally.

Case Law, Strasbourg: Saint Paul Luxembourg SA v Luxembourg, Newspaper protected under Articles 8 and 10 – Hugh Tomlinson QC

In the case of Saint Paul Luxembourg SA v Luxembourg (Case No 26419/10) decided on 18 April 2013, the Fifth Section of the Court of Human Rights considered the protection of journalists against coercive court orders.  It held that a warrant to search a newspaper office was, in the circumstances,  a violation of Article 8 and, because it was in wide terms which potentially included information about sources, it was also a violation of Article 10.  The Judgment is only available in French.

The United Kingdom in Strasbourg – all the Article 10 judgments

The House of Commons Library has published  UK Cases at the European Court of Human Rights since 1975 [pdf] outlining all the cases involving the UK at Strasbourg since 1975, with links to the judgments since September 1997.  Following a request on Twitter by Adam Wagner of the “UK Human Rights Blog” for a breakdown down of the cases by category he had two responses.   There is a Word document from University of Law’s Trevor Jackson and an Excel spreadsheet from David Charlton.

News: “Secret Arrests” Opinion Poll: Public agrees with Leveson, ACPO and the Judges

There has, over recent, weeks been a substantial press campaign against so-called “secret arrests” with unanimous support for a policy of releasing the names of people who arrested, irrespective of whether or not they are charged with any offence.  ACPO, Lord Justice Leveson and the senior judges responding to the Law Commission have been condemned for supporting a policy of only releasing names in exceptional circumstances.

Ten ways in which copyright engages freedom of expression, Part 2: Sliders six to ten – Graham Smith

This is the second part of a two part post discussing the relationship between Copyright and Freedom of Expression. Part 1 was published on Inforrm on 2 May 2012.

Ten ways in which copyright engages freedom of expression, Part 1, Sliders one to five – Graham Smith

The recent Donald Ashby (sub nom Ashby Donald) decision of the European Court of Human Rights has revived interest in the relationship between copyright and freedom of expression. The litigation arose because two of the defendant photographers had put on their US website pictures taken by the third at the Paris fashion shows.

Case Law, Strasbourg: Animal Defenders v UK, ban on political advertising does not violate Art 10 – Ronan Ó Fathaigh

On Monday 22 April 2013, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Human Rights held, by nine votes to eight, that the UK’s ban on political advertising on television did not violate Article 10. The majority opinion in Animal Defenders International v. the United Kingdom departed substantially from the Court’s previous case law on political advertising, and introduced a new method for reviewing the proportionality of such blanket-bans.

Paris Brown: A Case in Point for the DPP – Ashley Hurst and Ryan Dolby-Stevens

The recent experience of Paris Brown, the 17-year-old who resigned before taking up her role as Kent’s Youth Police and Crime Commissioner following a furore surrounding comments she made on Twitter, demonstrates exactly the type of police activity that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, was seeking to prevent when he issued prosecution guidelines (the “Guidelines“) in December of last year.

Does copyright control browsing? Meltwater in the UK Supreme Court – Graham Smith

Back in July 2011 I commented on the Court of Appeal judgment in Newspaper Licensing Agency v Meltwater ([2011] EWCA Civ 890) and explained how the reach of digital copyright had accidentally been increased beyond that in the offline world.  That was as a result of accepting that transient and temporary copies created in computer memory count as copies for copyright purposes. 

Case law, Northern Ireland, HL (a minor) v Facebook, How can the courts manage the Facebook phenomenon? – Rosalind English

HL (A Minor) v Facebook Incorporated, The Northern Health and Social Care Trust, The Department of Justice for Northern Ireland and others  [2013] NIQB 25.  In this somewhat chaotic action, the plaintiff sued ten defendants, in anonymised form by her father and next friend.