Law Revision

In this blog I will give the key themes in all of our sessions so far. This should be helpful for revision on our law test for the 1st December.

Court Reporting

The main difference between them is whether they are criminal or civil. The diagram to the left is the hierarchy of the courts and how they correspond to each other.

Criminal courts deal with cases of murder, theft, fraud etc and this where the cases are bought to be heard in front of the state, the DPP. (Director of Public Prosecutions) Since 2008 Keir Stammer QC has been the DPP of England and Wales.

Civil law covers divorces and consumer, agricultural and employment laws, etc. The Court of Appeal where criminal and civil law converge.

The courts are different between England and Wales (being one system) and Scotland. Scotland have a lot of different laws. They are able to vote on most of our laws but England and Wales have no say on any of their laws which makes it very one sided and also does not help England and Wales vey much. The only court that covers England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland is the Supreme Court which is at the very top of the chain.

Prejudice and Contempt of Court

Being prejudice means, writing an article that may not be in the defendants favour and giving the readers an opinion. They have to have a fair trial and and being prejudice in an article is when anything mentioned contaminates the trial or the defendant.

Contempt of court is what happens when you actually are prejudice in your article. Contempt of court can allow a person to go free from the crime they may have committed as they will not be given a free trial. The person who wrote and published the article could then face jail themselves.

When a case becomes ACTIVE legally, is as soon as an arrest has been made. As soon as this happens you can be in contempt of court. You can also be in contempt of court if any of the following have been done. When the police make an arrest, when an arrest warrant has been issued, a summons has been issued by a magistrate and of course, when the person has been charged with the crime.

Before the trial begins you may report on any of the following seven points.

* Names, ages, addresses and occupation of the defendant,

* Charges faced or a close summary,

* Name of the court and Magistrates names,

* Names of the solicitors or barristers present,

* Any arrangement of bail,

* Date and place to where the case is adjourned, and,

* Whether any legal aid was operated.

However, if the trial has anything to do with anyone under the age of 18 they are given anonimity. This means that by no reason are they to be found out. They have to have complete anonimity and this may then mean that there are some points that you can not report on. Anonimity is only ever taken away if they voluntarily talk to the press themselves and most of the time accompany it with a picture.

The key stages of the trial are:

* The prosecution opening,

* Key prosecution witnesses,

* Defence opening,

* Key defence witnesses,

* Judges summing up,

* Jury sent out, deliberation and the verdict,

* The sentencing.
If you attend the prosecution opening you must then attend the defence opening. Whether you decide to report on it or not, you must attend both.

A Magistrate is a civil officer who lays out the law. They administer sentences and only deal with criminal law. Civil cases will not make it up this far in the chain of the courts.

The categories of offence are, indictable only, which is a possible sentence of five years plus. Either-way can go to Crown or Magistrates court. Summary, stays with the Magistrates court. The powers of the Magistrates are 6 months jail, fines up to £5000, suspended sentences, conditional charge, community orders or ASBO's.

A community order is where the defendant is forced to serve their punishment in the community. They are not sent to prison but if they do not meet their conditions they may then go to jail and be punished there.

A conditional discharge is when the defendant is not punished but they have to comply with some conditions. If these conditions are met the discharge will become absolute where the defendant can walk free. Even if they have been proven guilty they may not be punished if they meet their conditions.

A suspended sentence is when the defendant would have been given their sentencing but when the Magistrate suspends it they are on probation. On this probationary period if they do not break the law the Magistrate will throw out the sentence.

Libel and Defamation

You can commit libel if you do any of the following:

1. Defamation

2. Identification

3. Publication Defamation is when you write an article that defames someone or a company.

Defaming someone means you have damaged their reputation. To be accused of defaming someone it has to be proven. You can also be accused of defamation through slander.

Identification, this is when a particular person is named. This can be an accidental problem through jigsaw identification. This is when you tell the story with all the facts but you explain enough that the reader can understand who it is. Jigsaw identification can be done accidentally so when writing a script telling facts about the defendant you have to be careful you don't explain too much.

Publication is when the article/programme is viewed by more than one person. When published on the Internet each load of the page is another publication.For each of these ways of defamation there are ways in which to defend yourself against it. You only need one of these defences but the more you have the more covered you are.

Justification is when what you have said is true and you can prove it. You need to be able to prove this though. This is one reason you should always keep all your rushes and notes. Especially if your notes are in short hand. This makes your evidence more believable.

Comment is your second defence against defamation. This is when it is the writers opinion. This has to be shown as definite opinion however. Many newspapers have a header at the top of the page saying comment or opinion. Sometimes guest editors also fall in to this category, especially in magazines where they get many celebrities to write a page of opinion on other celebrities, styles, fashion etc. Qualified privilege is when what you have written has been said in court. If you are going to report something defamatory and plan on using qualified privilege as your defence you must report fast, accurately and fair. The offended person does not have to show that they have been harmed but do have to show that they have suffered.

Common Law Qualified Privilege is a form of the above but it does not have to be said in court. This can be used is the following conditions have been met. The public need to hear about it, this is something that you do not need to prove. It has to be without any malice at all. The article itself and EVERYTHING you have ever written before. You should never write with malice anyway but if you have any article with malice in, you can not use common law qualified privilege. Again, everything must be fast, accurate and fair; and, for good measure there must be reasonable suspicion.

Malice and Qualified Privilege

Malice can expressed or implied. Either way is bad for journalism. No article you write should ever have malice in it. Unless you write comment pieces you should never have your own opinion in your articles anyway. When implying malice you are again, putting your own opinion in the piece which should not be done. To have common law qualified privilege you must show no malice and have no malice in any piece you have ever written/produced.

The Reynolds Defence

This is a list put together by Lord Nicholls that journalists must adhere to if they want to use the defence when publishing defamatory material. Bearing in mind that the piece in question is of public interest and is responsible journalism.

This defence came about when the Sunday Times was sued by Albert Reynolds; the former head of the Irish government. He sued because he believed that the story had deliberately and dishonestly misled the country's parliament.

In the defence of the Sunday Times they said that they were keeping within article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that in public interest in political issues and the conduct of elected politicians should be protected by qualified privilege.

The Sunday Times lost but the following defence was put together to allow future publications to publish defamatory articles in the name of public interest.

1. The allegation must be true and the seriousness of the allegation.
2. The extent to which the information is a matter of public concern.
3. The source of the information. No one with previous anger against the accused or are being paid for the story.
4. All the steps that you've taken to verify the information. This must be recorded information.
5. The status of the information. If it is all ready subject to an investigation this must be respected.
6. The urgency of the matter. Can not be old news.
7. Approach the claimant for comment.
8. Whether the article contained the gist of the claimants side of the story.
9. The tone of the article. The newspaper can raise queries and investigations.
10. The circumstances of the publication, including timing.

This has been criticised as being too narrow by judges in the House of Lords.

Copyright

Copyright covers everything from music to film, from the performers to pictures and everything in-between. Copyright covers the object or person as soon as it is published. Showing a film you have made to a friend is not subject to copyright but once you have published it to the internet or put it on to a DVD for viewing this is then copyrighted. A DVD is subject to copyright for 50 years after it has been published and a book is out of copyright 70 years after the author dies.

Fair Dealing

This is when you are allowed to use a small amount of footage from a film, music video, game etc for free. As long as you credit the company and the person you are allowed to use this. Just make sure it is only a few seconds and no longer. A great example of fair dealing is in Ewan and Grahams game piece where they are reviewing games and have a small amount of footage from the games in the review.

Confidentiality and Privacy

Privacy is linked to Articles eight and ten of the Human Rights Convention. Article eight is that everyone has the right to a private lifer and Article ten is freedom of speech.Confidentiality is linked to the Official Secrets Act 1989. It is a criminal offence to disclose official information without lawful persmission.The PCC's definition of Public Interest includes, but is not confined to the following:* Detecting or exposing crime of serious impropriety.

* Protecting public health and safety.

* Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation. This is the defence we will rely on most.With confidentiality you are allowed to keep secrets as long as they are not against the publics interest. A doctor, employee, lawyer etc can commit a breach of confidence if they discuss a secret with a third person. This is third party breach of confidence, when you are told a secret that was between two people. It is fine to publish this secret but you have to talk to the person the secret is about and inform them of the fact that you are going to publish it. If you do not inform them before it is published they will be able to sue you. A secret is only confidential when all the following points have been ticked. If any one of them are missing it is not confidential.

* The quality of the confidence, this can not be a rumour.

* If the secret was provided in circumstances imposing obligation. For example, a normal reasonable person would think it would be kept secret.

* No permission to pass on the information given.

* Detriment is likely to be caused to the person who gave the information.

Privacy

Article 8 states: 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.'Privacy mainly affects magazines and tabloids as they are more based on celebrity and their private lives.You must have consent when filming someone or taking their picture.

There are two types of consent.

* Explicit consent - The person has signed a contract. Or a release document. This will be useful if you think that the person may sue you at a later date; as you will have written proof of their consent.

* Implicit consent - They are looking in to the camera so they know that they are being filmed. You can also ask them to consent on the camera too as this would be good evidence of their consent if you were to be sued.

The case for privacy is Princess Caroline of Monaco. She campaigned for injunctions to stop the paparazzi from continuously filming her in every day life.After initially failing in court she then won on her second appeal for privacy. The ECHR ruling was that there is no legitimate public interest in knowing the whereabouts and behaviour of individuals generally, despite their fame or being in public. A legitimate expectation of protection of ones private life is to be extended to the criteria for assessment. A fair balance is to be struck between the right to privacy and the freedom of the press.

FOI Requests

Anybody is able to make an FOI request to any public authority. Only the UK security and intelligence agencies are exempt from having to give information through an FOI request. Every other company has to give you information. When filling out a request you have to be very specific otherwise they can refuse and will ask you to narrow your search. This could go on for months. The authority has 20 days to get the information to you or has to send you a reason as to why they can not get it to you within the 20 days. Your search not being specific enough would qualify as to why they can not send it to you within the 20 days; maybe there is too much. An FOI request is also free unless getting the information costs more than £600. Or if it is more than £450 for local councils.