Once again, the lord chief justice proves that he has a sense of humour by quashing Paul Chambers's conviction in the Twitter joke trial. Chambers was found guilty of sending a message of a menacing character when he tweeted: "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
On appeal, the high court found that the tweet was not menacing under section 127(1) of the Communications Act 2003. What does this tell us about the judiciary's relationship with "The Internet"? Bundle readers may note that the judgment refers to "Twitter" in inverted commas throughout, although provides this helpful definition:
"Tweets" include expressions of opinion, assertions of fact, gossip, jokes (bad ones as well as good ones), descriptions of what the user is or has been doing, or where he has been, or intends to go.
Professor Ian Cram of Leeds University writes:
Notwithstanding this happy outcome for Chambers, the route by which the court reached its decision is worthy of closer attention to see what it tells us about the courts' attitudes to internet speech. Noting that the 2003 Act predated the launch of Twitter and that the statutory reference to "menacing" was itself based on a previous Act of 1935 which had first employed the term, the court took the view that English law had long been tolerant of satirical, iconoclastic, rude and even distasteful opinion about serious and trivial matters before the 2003 Act and would continue to be so in the era of social media.
As Lord Phillips' presidency drew to a close, the supreme court handed down a rather unexpected judgment on Zimbabwean asylum seekers. As Garden Court's Helen Foot explains, it means that holding firm political views is no longer a prerequisite for seeking political asylum:
"The judgment can be seen as an extension to political agnostics of the principle established in HJ (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] AC 596, whereby gay people forced to conceal their sexual identity to avoid persecution are protected by the refugee convention."
According to Joshua Rozenberg, the challenge for the new president, Lord Neuberger, will be to instill a spirit of collegiality in the court. "That does not mean that the court's rulings need to be unanimous: dissent is to be expected, if not encouraged, in cases that are sufficiently difficult enough to reach a final court of appeal. But it does mean that judges will have to get on with one another, both privately and in their public rulings." Some of our readers took exception to that, especially those who felt Lady Hale was unfairly overlooked for the presidency.
Scotland is expected to legalise same-sex marriage next year. "Churches and celebrants who want to conduct same-sex ceremonies will have to "opt in" to the new powers, adding their names to a public register," reported Severin Carrell.
And the Bar Course Aptitude Test, which is designed to weed out BPTC candidates who lack the skills for a career at the bar, got the go-ahead on Wednesday. Guardian Law asked 11KBW's Seán Jones QC what he thought of the sample questions designed to assess reasoning skills that the Bar Standards Board has divulged. His verdict?
"Barristers need a degree of self confidence that borders on the clinically suspect. They have to be confident enough to look at the merits of a case and say 'very probably' rather than 'maybe' and then set off to court, let the buck settle in front of them and make their predictions come true."
JOBS OF THE WEEK
Policy and advocacy officer, Freedom from Torture
Visiting teacher in A level law, South Thames College
Solicitor, Macmillan Cancer Support
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BEST OF THE WEB
The Atlantic: Does Europe understand the first amendment better than we do?
Nicholas D Kristof in the New York Times: Safe from fire, but not guns
TechPresident: How the crowd wrote a constitution: learning from Iceland
FINALLY
Have you caught the Olympic bug yet? Concerns over free speech, the high amount of legislation and statutory instruments passed for the Games and potential litigation (Nike and Paddy Power this week) might suggest the legal profession has been kept busy in the run up to London 2012. Especially the two Locog lawyers who been shadowing the Olympic torch on every step of its journey across the UK to prevent ambush marketing on behalf of unlicensed products. Beats photocopying bundles.
Enjoy the weekend - whether you're avoiding or addicted to the Games.
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