Fair comment defence succeeds
Friday, April 2nd, 2010The Simon Singh fair comment appeal has been released. He’s the guy who said of the British Chiropractic Association that it “happily promotes bogus treatments”. Did this accuse them of conscious dishonesty? Eady J said yes, and it was a statement of fact. There was much hue and cry about the death of free speech. […]
Burning for reform
Thursday, March 25th, 2010Are republicans the only people in NZ who can commit the offence of flag-burning by burning a flag? You might remember that Paul Hopkinson had his conviction for flag-burning overturned in the High Court, because Justice Ellen France held that the offence needed to be interpreted narrowly to provide space for free speech rights under […]
New media law blog
Thursday, March 25th, 2010Check out Inforrm’s terrific blog here. Inforrm stands for “International Forum for Responsible Media”. It contains thoughtful commentary about media law issues, a useful blogroll, and a note of significant new and upcoming cases. Its lead today notes what I’ve been meaning to do for a while: that the evidence that the rest of the […]
Lights out
Friday, March 12th, 2010Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick slams the US Supreme Court’s astonishing decision to overturn the trial judge’s willingness to allow argument about the Californian gay-marriage case to be televised. Oddly enough, the Supreme Court determined that because Perry is a “high profile” case, there is extra reason to turn out the lights. As it explains in its […]
Bare reasoning
Friday, March 12th, 2010In Lowe v New Zealand Police, Clifford J rightly overturns Nick Lowe’s conviction for offensive behaviour for cycling in the nude. It was on World Nude Bike Day, but Mr Lowe, “a committed cyclist and naturist”, doesn’t need that incentive to bike about naked. For example, he competes in the Coast to Coast without clothes […]
Law Commission makes privacy recommendations
Friday, February 26th, 2010There’s another report from the Law Commission on privacy: this one the culmination of many of the others. The report’s not up on the website yet, but it seems that the key recommendations are: no change to the tort established in Hosking v Runting. creation of a new offence of trespassing on someone’s property to […]
UK Parliamentary committee recommends reform of media regulation
Thursday, February 25th, 2010The British Culture, Media and Sport Committee has released its report into press standards, privacy and libel. Recommendations: Privacy tort: No change. In particular, no legal requirement for the media to give notice to people who’s privacy they’re about to invade in an upcoming story, though a failure to provide such notice should hike any […]
BSA fucks up
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010The Broadcasting Standards Authority has upheld a complaint against the radio broadcast of Lily Allen’s song “Fuck You”, broadcast on Sunday and Tuesday afternoons on The Edge. I think they were wrong to do so, and I think it demonstrates that they still don’t really understand the Bill of Rights Act. If it were just […]
Michael Laws breaches broadcasting standards again
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010The BSA has pinged RadioLive talkback host Michael Laws yet again, this time for “blatant misrepresentation”. He had an exchange of emails with a health official concerned with Maori smoking that said: Laws: Stick to trying to get Māori to quit smoking, will you? Not exactly a sparkling success story, is it? Broughton: Not really. […]
Mau about gay issues
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Well, recent events have given a certain piquancy to the broadcasting standards complaint about this exchange between Paul Henry and Alison Mau, on Breakfast last year: Henry: …a little bit later in the morning I thought we might talk about the Acting Principal Family Court Judge’s call that it’s time the adoption laws were updated […]
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