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Ryan Goss - 4th October 2013
Melbourne is ten thousand miles from Wall Street. And yet, as a Federal Court of Australia decision demonstrated this week, the legal ramifications of the Occupy Wall Street movement are no less significant for the distance. In Muldoon v Melbourne City Council, North J of the Federal Court largely dismissed a number of applications made […]
- 6th July 2013
As I am writing these lines, Greece is the only state in the Council of Europe with no public broadcast media. On Tuesday 11 June 2013, the Greek Conservative-led coalition government announced its decision to immediately shut down Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (‘ERT’). Government spokesperson Simos Kedikoglou stated ‘ERT is a case of an exceptional lack […]
- 22nd June 2013
This is partially based on Ian Brown (2012) ‘Government Access to Private-Sector Data in the United Kingdom’ International Data Privacy Law 2 (4) 230-238 For the past fortnight, the media has been full of revelations about the surveillance practices of the US National Security Agency (NSA), a shadowy body responsible for communications intelligence for the […]
Guest Contributor - 15th June 2013
Contemporary criminal investigations, particularly in cases of conspiracy and joint participation, routinely include search and seizure of mobile phones and access of their stored electronic data. This prompts two questions: Does the core element of the right in question, viz a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’, arise in the case of electronically stored information? And does […]
John Laprise - 10th June 2013
The recent revelations about the surveillance activities of the US National Security Agency are an excellent example of one of the most intractable challenges facing legal systems and human rights frameworks around the world: there is a fundamental difference between law-making, which tends to be a slow and deliberative process, and the speed of technological […]
Guest Contributor - 25th April 2013
On 22 April, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held in Animal Defenders International v UK, by a majority of 9:8, that the UK’s broadcasting ban on political advertising under the Communications Act 2003 did not violate the free speech rights of an animal rights NGO that was refused permission to […]
Guest Contributor - 18th April 2013
By Jacob Rowbottom – On Monday, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will give its long awaited decision in Animal Defenders International v UK. The Court will decide whether the ban on political advertising on the broadcast media (under the Communications Act 2003) violates Article 10. The case was taken to […]
Guest Contributor - 30th March 2013
By Lauren Dancer- In Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v. Whatcott 2013 SCC 11the Supreme Court of Canada considered whether s 14(1)(b) of The Saskatchewan Human Rights Code which prohibits the publication of any representation ‘that exposes or tends to expose to hatred, ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of any person or class of […]
Guest Contributor - 25th March 2013
By Boxun Yin – In Monis v The Queen [2013] HCA 4, the High Court of Australia considered the unique Australian doctrine of “implied freedom of political communication”. As Australia lacks a statutory or constitutional bill of rights, it is relatively rare for the High Court to be confronted with human rights questions. This was […]
Guest Contributor - 25th February 2013
By Hugh Tomlinson QC – Hacking, blagging and bribing were, for many years, standard journalistic techniques in parts of the British press. Their exposure led to continuing police investigations, over 100 arrests, several criminal prosecutions and the Leveson inquiry. These criminal techniques were accompanied by intrusion, bullying, inaccuracy and a range of other abuses by […]
Guest Contributor - 17th November 2012
By Laurence Lustgarten After a busy two weeks on the blog, Laurence Lustgarten asks us to step back and reflect on the study of human rights. ‘Human rights’ is a subject that increasingly attracts many public-spirited students around the world. For would-be lawyers, this usually means intense study of doctrine. Thirty years ago there was […]
Guest Contributor - 28th October 2012
By Ilias Trispiotis In the aftermath of ‘the Innocence of Muslims’ turmoil, questions of whether and to what extent state authorities may regulate speech when it upsets public morals or religious beliefs have again come to the fore. In July 2012, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) offered some food for thought in Mouvement Raëlien […]