Do the TV license office have any legal right to contact me?

Invoice them for your time!

Or else foi a copy of the last letter you sent and post that back

Don't email them!!!!

Aren't we going to have a new system where as we will have a communication tax??
Also send Your letters in handwriting and then you can say you posses a computer too..

The inviolability of the dwelling has absolutely nothing to do with being able to selectively reject post.

If you were willing to completely exclude an post employees entirely then that's another matter. But if you are willing to receive post then you can't complain about the kind of post you receive.

But the analogy isn't compelling.

A more apt analogy would be that a homeowner has an absolute constitutional right to block out one channel or program.

The turning off the dial metaphor is analogous to refusing all post.

It's plain and obvious that the two situations are not at all analogous.

An post doesn't have a monopoly on postal delivery services in Ireland, so by sticking with them you have to accept communication from them.

The hypothetical homeowner could always just engage a private remailing service for incoming mail or private delivery service for outgoing. But most people stick with an post because they are the most viable option. And that comes with certain downsides.

But you can't point to anything in Irish jurisprudence that would indicate a willingness for such a radical departure.

The inviolability of the dwelling in Irish law is concerned with physical violation, not unwanted communication.

That is why if you want to try and apply this issue to the post you would have to exclude the actual postal worker and not just be selective about what post you receive.

First, taking the Irish jurisprudence: Barnes was concerned with physical violation, that cannot be disputed. Sullivan concerned a physical picket outside the applicant's house and conduct that amounted to harassment.

Neither of these bears any resemblance to the type of issues that the OP is raising.

Granted, there are some dicta that might be creatively applied but the circumstances where they have been raised thus far have been dramatically different to those posed by the OP.

So it should be acknowledged that asserting that he has a right in the manner suggested involves a very large degree of speculation that isn't grounded in anything firm.

Secondly, even though Ireland sometimes resorts to US constitutional jurisprudence there is quite a gulf between what has been decided here thus far and what you are suggesting US law is.

Finally, even if there was such a wide ranging right to exclude others on a constitutional level it would still not be helpful in this particular instance.

If the OP wished to exclude an post workers he would have to do it entirely (something more appropriately accomplished under the law of trespass to land).

If you are happy to receive post from an post then you are also accepting that they may occasionally contact you through the medium of their own service. If you wish to assert a wide-ranging right to be let alone (assuming it takes such a wide form) then you can't be so selective as to say that I will only take certain kinds of post, you can't dictate the terms of an post's service to them.

I believe that the proper remedy if you wish to be let alone in situations like this is trespass to land. An established remedy. I do not believe that the courts would be willing to expand the inviolability of the dwelling so dramatically where there is a perfectly fitting non-constitutional remedy. This is in keeping with the courts preference to resolve issues in a non-constitutional manner if possible.

Edit:

In re a ward of court the SC referred to re conroy as involving a dual right to your own person and a more general privacy right. The live issue in the case was the bodily one and and privacy as it applied to conroy was only approved in a byline and not expanded upon.

But again, the OP could easily ensure his privacy by refusing access to an post. His privacy is not violated where he allows an post to deliver but is unhappy with select pieces of post.

That's all fascinating Cody, but how might it assist someone in a hypothetical situation like the OP's? What might someone like the OP be able to do with that advice?

That's the bit you are missing.

We could go round and round on whether what you have posted is legal advice, and whether going a step further and postulating practical options for the OP (or a hypothetical person in the OPs position) is legal advice. I don't really want to go down that road.

My point is not that you shouldn't engage in speculation as to how a court might ultimately determine this kind of issue; that's all fine as far as it goes and more power to you for engaging in that kind of acaðemic discussion. My point is that, while fascinating, it is of little or no use to the typical person who raises this kind of issue.

That is the distinction it have been drawing between law as an academic discipline, and law as a practical discipline. They are quite often quite different things.

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

It should be clear to everyone except the most disinterested layman and the rural solicitor

Nice condescension, Cody...