Ireland is in the throes of enacting a specific law to protect privacy plus a new defamation law. Naturally enough, the country's journalists are worried, but justice minister Dermot Ahern is convinced that there is no threat to "good journalism."
Speaking to lawyers at the weekend, Ahern talked largely about the rights of citizens, as if their individual rights somehow outweigh society's collective rights to know.
A former justice minister, Michael McDowell, was concerned that the bill's current wording offers too wide a definition of privacy and would therefore allow the judiciary to be too creative.
That view surely echoes with recent criticism of British judges in privacy actions. And another speaker at the meeting was able to explain exactly what that meant in real terms.
It was none other than our own dear Lord (David) Eady, who said judges in England and Wales had, in a series of judgments, outlined a new methodology for resolving competing rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
He said it meant that no one convention right could take automatic precedence over another, and it was up to judges to weigh up competing interests.
This would often involve the judge weighing up the defendant's motives, and distinguishing between "political speech" at one end and "tittle tattle" at the other. He added: "This is a fundamental shift in our approach to free speech".
Is that, harking back to McDowell's point, an example of judges being "too creative" or simply exercising wise judgment for the public good?
Source: Irish Times
