Month: June 2011

For how long will your local District Court be in your district area, or local?

Today, the Limerick Leader reports on informal discussions between the Courts Service and the Gardaí about moving sittings of the Newcastle West District Court to Kilmallock, about 36 kilometres away. Kilmallock has benefitted from huge investment in recent years, whereas Newcastle West District Court remains antiquated and with few facilities. However, it is still a functioning Court building.

It goes without saying that moving District Court sittings to Kilmallock would have a significant impact on business in the town. The effect would be felt not only (not even most severely) by solicitors, who already travel around the region to represent clients at various hearings. It would, however, force a further downturn on the restaurants, cafes, pubs and shops in the town that get a considerable lift to their business when the court sits.

For those not familiar with Newcastle West, it’s an old market town in West Limerick. It’s the biggest town in the County and familiar to many travelling to Kerry as the main road passes through.

The town has its origins in a castle (the old castle) erected by the Knights Templars in 1184 and since then it has played an important role in West Limerick. Part of that role has been the administration of justice. Samuel Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) notes the important market and court sessions in the town:

Courts leet and baron are held by the seneschal of the manor, and petty sessions for the district are held every Friday.

Over the centuries, as with any market town, court and market days brought significant life and business to the town. The market days are mostly a thing of the past, but Newcastle West District Court still sits regularly and incorporates the old sittings of the Adare, Rathkeale and Askeaton courts.

Aside from monetary concerns, moving the court would have a psychological impact, stripping the town of an important official function. The town would be somewhat diminished as a result. And while 36 kilometres might not seem a tremendous distance, there is no direct means of public transport from the Newcastle West area to Kilmallock.

PS. Incidentally, last year the High Court rejected a challenge taken by solicitors in the New Ross area against the temporary relocation of that town’s court sittings to Ardcavan. The challenge was on public interest grounds and on the basis that the move threatened the applicant’s right to earn a living. The case is interesting because it related to temporary arrangements in the case of an “urgent need” or where the courthouse involved becomes “unsafe or otherwise unusable”. This is not the case with Newcastle West District Court.

Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation (brief) consultation on filesharing injunctions

[Updated 23/06/11] In the (literally) last days of the previous Government, a rumour shot around that the then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation was about to sign a statutory instrument into law which would address the gap in the law criticised by Mr. Justice Chartleton in the EMI & ors v. UPC case.

A firm denial was issued by the Minister but I’m not sure anyone really believed that a draft SI wasn’t floating around somewhere. Anyway, the newly-titled Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation has put a draft SI out to consultation. The relevant SI text is below.

~~Deadline for submissions is 1 July 2011: less than 2 weeks from today. That’s pretty swift consultation by any standard.~~ Apparently the Department received a number of requests for an extension to the consultation period, so the new deadline for submissions is Friday 29 July 2011.

New section 40(5A) of the Copyright & Related Rights Acts:

(5A)(a) without prejudice to subsections (3) and (4), the owner of the copyright in the work concerned may apply to the High Court for an injunction against a person who provides facilities referred to in subsection (3) where those facilities are being used by one or more third parties to infringe the copyright in that work.

(b) In considering an application for an injunction under this subsection, the court shall have due regard to the rights of any third party likely to be affected and the court shall make such directions (including, where appropriate, a direction requiring a third party to be put on notice of the application) as the court may deem necessary or appropriate in all the circumstances.

New section 205(9A) of the Copyright & Related Rights Acts:

(9A)(a) without prejudice to subsections (7) and (8), the rightsowner may apply to the High Court for an injunction against a person who provides facilities referred to in subsection (7) where those facilities are used by one or more third parties to infringe any of the rights referred to in Parts III and IV.

(b) In considering an application for an injunction under this subsection, the court shall have due regard to the rights of any third party likely to be affected and the court shall make such directions (including, where appropriate, a direction requiring a third party to be put on notice of the application) as the court may deem necessary or appropriate in all the circumstances.

Thanks to Ronan Lupton for bringing the consultation to my attention.

Privacy and the press

I wrote a short article for last week’s Sunday Business Post on the super-injunctions story and the conflict between freedom of speech and privacy. It appeared in the Computers and Business magazine and is available here.

It’s a difficult topic to tackle in a short article and some more thoughts on the issue are in my earlier rambling blogpost. However, Karlin Lillington dealt with the issue expertly in last Friday’s Irish Times by contrasting the UK super-injunctions saga with the Irish experience of data protection and retention laws.

PRIVACY HAS two definitions. There is the definition that applies if you are wealthy, or a celebrity, or a corporation or organisation, and you wish carefully to protect from the public eye your infidelities, personal peccadilloes, ethically questionable activities, illegal doings or other foibles that might damage your income, reputation or bottom line.

Then, there is the definition that applies if you are just an ordinary citizen and a bank, an insurance company, an electronics manufacturer, a telecommunications company, a law enforcement agency, a government department or other organisation holds or would like to view lots of potentially sensitive information about you.

If you are in the former, elite group, lucky you. You will find you are entitled to all sorts of perks and privileges when it comes to your special definition of privacy. Your national government may come up with laws specifically to protect your version of privacy.

Justice systems may invent special protections that mean not only is no one allowed to mention whatever it is you or your company is said to have done, but no one is even allowed to mention that such a legal protection is there in the first place.

Social media and internet companies may, despite public statements about valuing their users and freedom and democracy, relinquish information about the people who might have said something annoying about you, your company or your government, the better to enable the justice system to get these aggravating people off your back.

If you are in the second group, your privacy is too often a commodity.