CMLP International Blog

The Legal Committee of France's Chamber of Representatives voted unanimously on March 27 to propose to repeal the offense of insulting the President of the Republic, which is still a crime under article 26 of the French Press law. French Representatives will now vote on April 18 to adopt the proposal to repeal article 26, then will send the proposal to the Senate.

I wrote earlier about that odd remnant in French law of the Ancien Régime belief that the Head of State must not be insulted, and talked about the judicial saga of Hervé Eon, a French citizen, arrested and fined in August 2008 for having held a placard which read "casse toi pauvre con" ("get lost you a$$...") on the side of a road where Nicolas Sarkozy, then President of France, was scheduled to pass by.   read more »

Last October I wrote about the rise in popularity among French Twitter users of the hashtag #unbonjuif ("a good jew"). In December we saw a growth in other offensive hashtags, including the homophobic #Simonfilsestgay, ("if my son is gay") or the xenophobic #SimaFilleRamèneUnNoir ("if my daughter brings a Black man home"). As with #unbonjuif, the "game" consisted of adding messages to these hashhags to create a "joke."

This time the hashtags prompted a response from the government. Najat Belkacem-Vallaud, France’s Minister of Women's Rights, reacted to these offensive tweets by writing an editorial published on December 28 in Le Monde under the title "Twitter must respect the values of the Republic." She described these tweets as being "morally reprehensible and illegal under our laws," and goes on by writing that:

[i]t is the honor of France to have progressively included in its criminal code punishment for incitement to hatred or violence against a person or group of persons because of their origin, membership or non-membership in an ethnic group, nation, or because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. These acts or remarks are punishable by law and the fact that they were made using a virtual channel does not make less punishable those who committed them and whose case made be tried by courts.   read more »

On October 16, the Union des Étudiants Juifs Français (Union of French Jewish Students, UEJF) asked Twitter to remove several racist and anti-Semitic tweets. Using the hashtags #unbonjuif and #unbonmusulman ("agoodjew" and "agoodmuslim," respectively), some Twitter users were posting derogatory comments about Jews and Muslims, some allegedly meant to be 'jokes.'

The UEJF president, Jonathan Hayoun, and the UEJF legal representatives had a conference call with Twitter's senior management, in which the UEJF asked Twitter to remove the tweets in question. Twitter initially had refused to delete them, and had also refused to provide the UEJF with the identities of the users.

But on October 28, the UEJF announced that Twitter had started removing the anti-Semitic tweets. It is not yet clear whether Twitter also provided the identities of the authors of the tweets, but it is unlikely it would do so without an order from a French court.   read more »

On September 14, French weekly gossip magazine Closer published several pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge taken without their consent while they were spending a weekend at a private villa in the South of France. Some of the pictures showed the Duchess wearing only the bottom of a bikini suit. France may have a liberal attitude towards female nudity and half-naked women are routinely seen sunbathing on its beaches, but it also has strong privacy laws, including the court-created droit à l’image -- the right to the privacy in one’s image.

French Law Protects the Privacy of Public Figures, including Princesses 

Article 9 of the French civil Code provides that “[e]veryone has the right to respect for his private life.” This is not merely an aspirational statement, but an enforceable right, as Article 9 gives courts the power to prescribe any measures appropriate to prevent or to end an invasion of personal privacy.  In case of emergency, those measures may even be provided for by interim order.

Even though Article 9 does not specifically mention a right over one’s image, the French courts have interpreted it as giving individuals a droit à l’image. What is protected is not the image itself, but a person’s right not be photographed without her consent. Article 9 provides protection regardless of whether the person is famous, or even royalty.   read more »

Being a journalist in Italy may have occupational hazards, but having to go to prison in your own country because of an article you wrote should not be one of them. However, Italy, a founding Member of both the Council of Europe and the European Union, still punishes defamation through the medium of the press (diffamazione a mezzo stampa) by a prison term.

The penalties are harsh: article 595 of the Italian Penal Code punishes such crimes by six months up to three years in prison, or by a fine which cannot be less than €516 (more or less $675). The penalties are increased if the victim is a political figure, a concept that might surprise United States journalists who generally receive greater protection against defamation liability when writing about politicians.

Three Recent Cases

The law is alive and well enforced. An article written by journalist Orfeo Donatini, titled “Pura razza SüdTirol” (The pure race of South Tyrol), was published in 2008 by the newspaper Alto Adige. It reported that Seven Knoll, a Representative at the Parliament of South Tyrol and the leader of Süd-Tiroler Freiheit, a South Tyrol separatist party, was being investigated by the police for his possible ties with neo-Nazi groups. The source of the information, which had first been published by the national weekly L’Espresso, was a confidential police report.   read more »

Google searches employ two features: autocomplete and Google instant. These work together to complete your search terms and to automatically load search results while you're typing. While you're probably thankful for the few seconds this saves, or the way it triggers a connection you couldn't recall, Bettina Wulff (wife of former German President Christian Wulff) would be unlikely to agree with you these days. Type Wulff's name into Google, and the first autocomplete suggestions you'll see are "Bettina Wulff escort," and "Bettina Wulff prostituierte." Wulff is now suing Google for defamation, along with German TV host Günther Jauch and over 30 bloggers and media outlets. Wulff's suit against Google focuses on the results of this autocomplete feature.   read more »

When hearing the expression “lèse majesté,” images of the Queen of Hearts ordering heads to be chopped off ASAP may come to mind. Marie-Antoinette, the queen who was once a “majesté” in France, herself lost her head during the French Revolution. Surely, the crime of lèse majesté is now a thing of the past?

Lèse Majesté Law is Heavily Enforced in Thailand

Not quite, as some monarchies still prosecute this crime. Several of the European monarchies still have lèse-majesté laws, including Norway, where prosecuting the crime can only be carried out by the king or with his consent.

Thailand, a constitutional monarchy, has had a lèse-majesté law since 1908, the year of the enactment of its first criminal code. Although the political powers of the king (currently King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has reigned since 1946) are limited, the monarchy is held in high regard.  A clause in the Thai constitution states that "The King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action." Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code states that "Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years." The code does not define, however, what constitutes a defamation or an insult.   read more »

When hearing the expression “lèse majesté,” images of the Queen of Hearts ordering heads to be chopped off ASAP may come to mind. Marie-Antoinette, the queen who was once a “majesté” in France, herself lost her head during the French Revolution. Surely, the crime of lèse majesté is now a thing of the past?

Lèse Majesté Law is Heavily Enforced in Thailand

Not quite, as some monarchies still prosecute this crime. Several of the European monarchies still have lèse-majesté laws, including Norway, where prosecuting the crime can only be carried out by the king or with his consent.

Thailand, a constitutional monarchy, has had a lèse-majesté law since 1908, the year of the enactment of its first criminal code. Although the political powers of the king (currently King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has reigned since 1946) are limited, the monarchy is held in high regard.  A clause in the Thai constitution states that "The King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action." Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code states that "Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years." The code does not define, however, what constitutes a defamation or an insult.   read more »

When hearing the expression “lèse majesté,” images of the Queen of Hearts ordering heads to be chopped off ASAP may come to mind. Marie-Antoinette, the queen who was once a “majesté” in France, herself lost her head during the French Revolution. Surely, the crime of lèse majesté is now a thing of the past?

Lèse Majesté Law is Heavily Enforced in Thailand

Not quite, as some monarchies still prosecute this crime. Several of the European monarchies still have lèse-majesté laws, including Norway, where prosecuting the crime can only be carried out by the king or with his consent.

Thailand, a constitutional monarchy, has had a lèse-majesté law since 1908, the year of the enactment of its first criminal code. Although the political powers of the king (currently King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has reigned since 1946) are limited, the monarchy is held in high regard.  A clause in the Thai constitution states that "The King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action." Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code states that "Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years." The code does not define, however, what constitutes a defamation or an insult.   read more »

Censorship in China is nothing new.  Heck, it's practically to be expected these days. Witness last week's censoring of the Shanghai stock exchange's 64.89 point drop on June 4.  See, that number is already on the Great Firewall of China's blacklist because it happens to coincide with the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre, 6/4/89.  That the drop happened to occur on June 4, the 23rd anniversary of the massacre, well, that's just one of life's rich little ironies.  And it caused havoc, as the censors felt compelled to crack down on any mention of the perfectly legitimate stock market results.  And any mention of the stock market, in fact.  It'd be funny if it weren't so sad.

Now, China's Twitter-like microblog Sina Weibo is threatening to up the censorship ante with a new policy that cracks down on "untrue" content, reports the International Business Times.  This new system comes in the guise of a new point system.  Upon creating a Sina Weibo account, users are given 80 points (or 100 points if they set up their account using their government-assigned ID number).  Subsequently, each "falsehood" that the user communicates to the larger community results in a point loss, with broader communication leading to greater losses.   read more »