I see Mary Lou is joining the compo culture brigade with a defamation lawsuit against RTE.
Your statement - 'The legal action in and of itself is worrying to the NUJ and could have a chilling affect on press freedom according to them.'
Again, the courts don't censor. The plaintiff's action is taken to counter alleged defamation. If found to be true the defamed pays out. If not they don't. Good reporters are fine, bad reporters are not.
RTE, and other MSM have been investigating SF for several decades, and with more intensity as of late owing to their political rise. and their findings are what? Pretty much zilch.
MLMcD and SF are countering the many lies said about this. This is a pre-election warning that those who spread lies, or give a platform to rumour-mongers, will face legal action. Our legal system in action.
Again, where in that statement do I mention the courts? I mention the "legal action in and of itself".
You have claimed to be a lawyer, but one of the key skills of a competent law professional is to be able to read the actual words and understand their meaning regardless of the context in which you are viewing them. You read my words, and because of the context of your political views, took a different meaning.
The legal action doesn't have to go to court to have the chilling effect on press freedom. It does that in and of itself, and in fact, the chilling effect may be more severe if it doesn't go to court.
What complete nonsense. The problem is our defamation laws give too much freedom to those under investigation by the media. It looks like Sinn Fein are fully availing of this.
It was cowardice (or worse) by a right-wing pro-establishment tabloid newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch. If they had factual information they'd have won and Saville taking it to court would have had to face hundreds of other victims coming forward as happened later on. The Sun journalist is retrospectively trying to excuse his inaction.
Why do Irish laws need to be changed because of what happened with UK laws?? You realise we are separate countries??
"Factual". Good man. Ignorance is bliss as they say.
Factual evidence the same way that half a dozen women came forward to claim they had been assaulted by a bigly President and yet he was never even charged, never mind convicted.
Saville would likely have won his case. You are basing your claim off what was published about him after he died. Which was when he could no longer be defamed.
Read the post again:
The courts don't necessarily "penalise defamation".
They can. They don't necessarily
Anyway, can you tell us what in that interview might have lowered the estimation of Mary Lou in the mind of the reasonable person? It doesn't have to be the specific thing - just can you identify any?
"Ireland’s defamation law regime, among the harshest in Europe, has been condemned by the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Commission, as well as freedom-of-speech NGOs. Huge awards and unpredictability are regarded by media organisations as threats to the freedom of the press and to their financial viability. Those payouts, and the lack of transparency surrounding them, have been criticised also by the Supreme Court."
"The recommendation of the introduction of a right to seek dismissal of groundless or exaggerated suits, a so-called “anti-Slapp” (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) defence, could provide important protection against all-too-familiar attempts by the rich and powerful to muzzle investigative journalism with pre-emptive actions."
That enough for you? All-too-familiar attempts by the rich and powerful to muzzle investigative journalism with pre-emptive actions? Hmm, now where did I see a lawsuit recently with those characteristics.
One point that has been missed in all of this is that Mary-Lou chose to avoid going to the Press Council and filing a complaint, but instead, went directly to the courts. Another indication of the appearance of a SLAPPs action.
She also could have asked RTE for a right of reply.
It's not as if she never gets any airtime anyway
It's either disingenuous or ignorant of you not to be aware of where those legal actions conclude. Which is it?
How can you preemptively take someone to court for defamation??
If defamed you'll get recourse.
If not you won't.
It's been explained multiple times. It just doesn't seem to be getting through.
The claim was we have a right to the details because we are paying for it. That's false.
If MLMD loses what costs will the tax payer bear?
Did MC sue RTE? I'm not sure what the link is.
Or does the law, her right to Sue, which you allegedly support, depend on other issues from the past that you don't like? Is that your point? Do you know how the law works?
England & Wales is an entirely different jurisdiction to the Republic of Ireland. You hopefully realise that? Different defamation laws.
Same as a personal injury I suppose.
Next time you read about some lads who have been in their tenth car accident, after getting settlements and awards of hundreds of thousands for their previous incidents, don't forget to remind yourself that they wouldn't have gotten previous settlements or awards had they not been bona fide claims and injuries.
Don't come back on here complaining to us about your mate who grazed the bumper of someone else's car at 2mph and the other person got 30k for whiplash. If he got the 30k, your mate caused him 30k worth of damage.
Three assault cases against Donald Trump thus far. Best to research before posting.
Saville media reporting would have forced contemporaneous police investigation and victims coming forward. As with every other similar case in the past two decades.
Do you not find it ironic that the lawyers of Rupert Murdoch would supposedly be fearful of Saville's lawyers?
Neither RTE nor MLMcD have commented on the case yet you've got privileged legal info that you're asking me to comment upon.
When the public are made aware of the contents of the defamation suit then I, and others, will pass comment. I don't do so on the merely hypothetical.
Man, this is basic 101. Your ignorance is astounding.
Feel free to provide any links where the bigliest has been charged or convicted
Press council has insufficient teeth.
I'm unsure whether it's accidental or proud ignorance.
You don't need access to court filings to answer the question. You can answer it on a hypothetical basis. Let me explain it to you with a similar example.
Task 1. Look at the most recent Late Late Show and try to identify whether you can find any statements that could potentially be considered to be defamatory against Eamonn Ryan.
So you can look at that program and see if you can find any. Now I picked Eamonn Ryan randomly. And I picked the LLS randomly. There is no suggestion that there were any defamatory statements in the most recent Late Late Show. And no suggestion that anyone is considering taking any action over anything. I'm just asking you whether you can identify any that might potentially be defamation.
Task 2: Listen back the the RTE radio interview linked earlier on this thread. Try to see whether you can identify anything that might be considered potentially defamatory towards MLMD in it.
Like FG TD Alan Farrell tried??
If unable to answer my point please just simply say so instead of shoehorning in some irrelevant nonsense. I'm expecting your comments on Real v Man City at your next failure to counter a point.
I don't know. Feel free to tell us on here what he did.
Run away and aviod the point if you want. I wasn't expecting anything better
The chilling effect occurs long before those legal actions conclude, which has been my point from the start, which you completely missed in your failed attempt to try and teach me about your view of the legal world.
It's googlable. I'll keep this thread on topic.
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