libel
Is Sinn Fein really planning to appeal its libel case or just stalling on the pay out?
Tweet One of the privileges of having access to lots of money is that you can safely set aside all legal good sense and go for broke. The problem with the idea that the party might appeal a jury verdict from a jury they insisted on having against the judge’s better counsel is that it [...] more »
Why did Sinn Fein feel compelled to invent ‘malicious’ untruths about Declan Gormley?
Tweet This morning in the High Court, both Sinn Fein’s and Declan Gormley’s counsels will be making their cases on the figure in damages to be reached by the jury in Sinn Fein malicious libel trial. We should have a figure to run with by lunchtime. As Tom Kelly – rather prophetically – warned back [...] more »
Gormley wins libel case against Sinn Fein
Tweet The BBC reports the jury verdict in Declan Gormley’s, a former non-executive director of NI Water, libel case against Sinn Féin, the party’s Newry and Armagh MLA Cathal Boylan, and former assembly member Willie Clarke. From the BBC report Declan Gormley sued the party over the contents of two press releases it issued in 2011 in support [...] more »
UTV DVD “will not satisfy the request for particulars”…
Tweet Sam McBride has had some interesting reports to file on the Declan Gormley hearing. This from yesterday’s proceedings is more bizarre than the last one. What’s at play here is that Gormley’s lawyers are trying to get Sinn Fein’s lawyer’s to specify what evidence they have that Gormley ‘attacked’ their two MLAs… Well worth [...] more »
Sinn Féin MLAs to claim ‘qualified privilege’ for press statements in NI Water libel case?
Tweet The BBC reports from Belfast High Court as, former non-executive director in NI Water, Declan Gormley’s libel proceedings against Sinn Féin, the party’s Newry and Armagh MLA Cathal Boylan, and former assembly member Willie Clarke, heads to its court date – 26 November. Apparently, no political party members nor NI Water employees, members and staff [...] more »
Dead tree columnist prejudices public’s perception of bloggers?
Tweet Allison Morris made a number of contributions to this morning’s Irish News. As well as the front page article about the alleged security breach when a police officer’s personal mobile fell into the hands of dissident republicans (and its contents were subsequently passed to the Irish News), she also writes a curious opinion piece [...] more »
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Books
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Christopher Hitchens, 1949 – 2011
Tweet Writer Christopher Hitchens has died aged 62. He was as contrary as he was brilliant. Here is a brief In Memoriam from Vanity Fair (his outlet of choice since 1992) and, here, a longer tribute from his friend Christopher Buckley Stanley in The New Yorker. Better, perhaps, though to post one of Hitchens’ own writings [...] read our review »
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The Imperfectionists (Tom Rachman) – an insight into a newspaper that’s maybe not so fictional
Tweet ‘news’ is often a polite way of saying ‘editor’s whim’ Given the shift from print to online and e-ink, maybe Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists was a suitable first first book for me to finish reading on the Kindle. Considering the economic pressures on the newspaper industry, his novel perhaps captures the spirit and soul [...] read our review »
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Against the use and promotion of ‘hate speech’…
Tweet Of all the reasons to write a book this one’s got to the most incongruous: i.e. the receipt of an email saying “YOU ARE A TOTALITARIAN ASSHOLE”. Nice piece from John Paul Stevens in the New York Review of Books, in which he reviews Jeffery Waldron’s theses that freedom of speech should be tempered [...] read our review »
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