You may have seen recently that a court case in Clare regarding a GP who's accused of defrauding families collapsed because of something published in the Times and the Examiner. They're likely to have to foot the bill for the entire trial - the judge hasn't decided but concedes that they didn't act out of malice and that as it was unintentional, it's Technical Contempt.

This is something we have, I believe, discussed before, but with this recent news and an emerging trend of defence teams increasingly looking for these sorts of issues to collapse trials, we are making it clear and stated policy of Boards.ie that you can no longer discuss an active/sitting court case as pretty much any sort of commentary on the issue can be classified as contempt. Offering opinion on the innocence or guilt of the parties involved for example is a definite no-no.

This is simply too big a risk to determine where the "safe" levels of discussion are, so it's easier to make a blanket ban on current case discussion.

This comes from the top - the directors of the company can be jailed for contempt on the whims of a judge who feels they deserve it and given the Irish Legal System's complete inability to work with (never mind understand) the Internet and all that it entails, I'd really rather not have to try and talk to DeVore at visiting hours in the 'Joy

So effective immediately, current court cases are a no-no. This, I'm afraid folks, isn't up for debate. We don't like "issuing" rules like this without some manner of discussion but I'm afraid that's not an option in this case.

Thank you for your time.