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Daniel Cullen - 31st January 2018
Last month, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Professor Philip Alston released a statement following his official visit to the United States. Beyond many issues around taxation, healthcare and housing, his report evaluated the impacts of new information technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), on the poorest Americans. One example given was the […]
Alex May - 13th January 2018
This post analyses Einarsson v Iceland, a defamation case in which a celebrity sued an Instagram user (‘X’) for calling them a ‘rapist’ on social media. The judgment has worrying implications for discussions of rape allegations. Background Egill Einarsson, an Icelandic media personality, was reported to the police by two women alleging rape and sexual […]
Martin Lau and Jason Ko - 8th November 2017
What, if any, are the geographical limitations of the exercise of freedom of expression? This was the question confronted by the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal in its recent decision of HKSAR v Fong Kwok Shan. The facts are as follows: Madam Fong, a social activist, attended two meetings of the Legislative Council in […]
Gaurav Mukherjee - 31st October 2017
On 5 September, the Grand Chamber (GC) of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgment in Bărbulescu v. Romania (hereinafter Bărbulescu GC Judgment). The central question which confronted the GC was a determination of whether an employer’s surveillance of an employee’s workplace correspondence, without their explicit informed consent, violated their right to […]
Nidhi Singh - 5th October 2017
A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India on August 24 ruled that right to privacy is a fundamental right and is ‘intrinsic to life and liberty’ which is protected under various fundamental rights enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution. In a judgment as elaborate and detailed expanding to 547 pages, the […]
Jayna Kothari - 4th October 2017
2017 has been a big year for constitutional development in India. In a historic and landmark decision, a 9-judge bench of the Supreme Court pronounced that the right to privacy is a constitutional right which is not only rooted in the right to life and liberty, but also enshrined in all other fundamental rights, including […]
Abhijeet Singh Rawaley - 24th August 2017
A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India has reserved its decision on whether or not there is a ‘fundamental right’ (FR) to privacy in India. This article explores the momentous opportunity before the the world’s largest democracy to balance the individual right to privacy on one hand, and rapidly advancing technology flooding the […]
Nidhi Singh and Anurag Vijay - 23rd August 2017
A nine-judge constitution bench of Supreme Court of India is currently considering whether privacy is a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution. This issue has emerged due to the legal challenges arising from Aadhaar or Unique Identification Number. Aadhaar is a twelve-digit unique-identity number issued to all Indian residents by the Government of India based […]
Parika Kamra - 23rd August 2017
The Indian legal community is currently on tenterhooks awaiting judgment from the Supreme Court about the compatibility of the Aadhaar system with the right to privacy, which is apparently due tomorrow. The case is made all the more interesting by the absence of an explicit right to privacy in the Indian Constitution. In this post, […]
Christina Moreno - 7th August 2017
German lawmakers have recently passed a controversial law, ‘Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz’ (Network Enforcement Act or NetzDG), which, in part, aims to counter online hate speech. Under the Act, social media companies operating in Germany are required to remove ‘clearly illegal’ content within 24 hours or risk fines of up to €50 million ($57 million). In not-so-clear cases, […]
Claire Overman and Andrew Wheelhouse - 27th April 2017
On 9 March 2017, the Third Section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) declared inadmissible a complaint by the applicant, Mr Pihl, that his right to respect for his private life had been violated. He had complained to the ECtHR that Swedish legislation preventing him from holding a non-for-profit association responsible for a […]
Alvin Attalo - 21st April 2017
The Kenyan High court has, in a recent decision, struck a blow for freedom of expression. The case, Jacqueline Okuta& another v Attorney General & 2 others , sought to challenge the constitutionality of the offence of criminal defamation created under the provisions of section 194 of the Penal Code. The petitioners in this case instituted […]