Fracturing Constitutional Rights: The Prosecution of Alleged Broadcast Infringers in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Bankole Sodipo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Liability ◽  
Copyright Infringement ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Appeal Decision ◽  
Written Law ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
Material Form

Abstract Infringement of broadcasts is often treated as a crime. The Nigerian Constitution guarantees that no-one can be prosecuted for any act that is not prescribed in a written law. Section 20 of Nigeria's Copyright Act only criminalizes dealing with infringing copies. A “copy” is defined in terms of material form. An infringing broadcast therefore connotes a recorded broadcast or a copy of a broadcast. This article argues that, statutorily, not every act that gives rise to civil liability for broadcast copyright infringement constitutes a crime. The article reviews the first broadcast copyright prosecution Court of Appeal decision in Eno v Nigerian Copyright Commission. Eno was unlawfully prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned. The article seeks to stem the wave of prosecutions on the type of charges used in Eno. In the absence of law reform, the prosecutions based on the line of charges in Eno constitute a fracturing of constitutional rights.

scholarly journals The Potential Impact of Indigenous Rights on the International Law of Nationality

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
Kirsty Gover
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Domestic Law ◽  
Court Of Appeal

International law has long recognized that the power of a state to identify its nationals is a central attribute of sovereignty and firmly within the purview of domestic law. Yet these boundaries may be shifting, in part due to the effect of international human rights norms. In 2011, citizenship scholar Peter Spiro asked, “[w]ill international law colonize th[is] last bastion of sovereign discretion?” Ten years later, this essay reframes the question, asking whether the international law of Indigenous Peoples’ rights will “decolonize” the discretion, by encouraging its exercise in ways that respect and enable Indigenous connections to their traditional land. It considers this possibility in light of two recent cases decided by courts in Australia and Canada, both of which ascribe a distinctive legal status to non-citizen Indigenous persons: Love v. Commonwealth, Thoms v Commonwealth (“Love-Thoms,” Australian High Court) and R. v. Desautel (“Desautel,” British Columbia Court of Appeal, currently on appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada). In each case, the court in question recognized that some Indigenous non-citizens have constitutional rights to remain within the state's territory (and perhaps also a correlative right to enter it), by virtue of their pre-contact ancestral ties to land within the state's borders.

Causing or inciting sexual activity with persons who have a mental disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (21) ◽  
pp. 1258-1259
Author(s):  
Richard Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Sexual Activity ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Sexual Offences ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Appeal Decision ◽  
Sexual Offences Act 2003 ◽  
Court Of Appeal

Richard Griffith, Senior Lecturer in Health Law at Swansea University, discusses the implications of a Court of Appeal decision that considers the scope of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, section 39, in relation to care workers

scholarly journals The Scope of Safety Warrants Under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 301
Author(s):  
P Beverley
Keyword(s):  
Family Unit ◽  
The Family ◽  
Appeal Decision ◽  
Court Of Appeal

The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 ("CYPF Act") recognises that the interests of a child will be generally best served within the family unit. This recognition is subject to the qualification that a child should be removed from that unit whenever there is an unacceptable risk of harm to that child. This analysis will consider one mechanism provided by the Act to facilitate such removal, and the effect of the Court of Appeal decision in R v Kahu.

Michael Skidmore v Led Zeppelin: Copyright infringement in music under US law

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 321-323
Author(s):  
Hayleigh Bosher
Keyword(s):  
Copyright Infringement ◽  
Ninth Circuit ◽  
Circuit Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Ratio Rule ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
Led Zeppelin

Abstract Michael Skidmore v Led Zeppelin No 16-56057, DC No 2:15-cv-03462-RGK-AGR, 9 March 2020 The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal upheld that Led Zeppelin's song Stairway to Heaven did not infringe the copyright of the instrumental song ‘Taurus’ and overruled circuit precedent to reject the inverse ratio rule.

The Enduring Legacy of ‘Reckless Disregard’

2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 316-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McArdle
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
Personal Injury ◽  
Duty Of Care ◽  
Canadian Province ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Appeal Decision ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Court Of Appeal

Personal injury at common law has spawned many cases where sports participants have inflicted injury either upon other participants or upon spectators/bystanders. This paper is not an exhaustive analysis of those ‘sports torts' cases but focuses instead upon the impact of Wooldridge v Sumner, a Court of Appeal decision that was legally sound but based upon highly significant errors of fact, and which has subsequently been advanced before the courts in two jurisdictions as authority for untenable propositions that concern both the standard of care and the duty of care owed by sports participants. While a consideration of the authorities prior to Wooldridge illustrates that there was never a basis at common law for the argument that either the standard or the duty of care differed from that pertaining in non-sporting contexts, the case has been appropriated by counsel in order to argue along those lines even though Wooldridge is not authority for either proposition. On some occasions those arguments have actually received the support of the courts of England and Wales and of the Canadian Province of British Columbia. Despite the existence in both jurisdictions of more recent authorities that ought to have heralded the demise of both concepts, they have proved remarkably tenacious.

scholarly journals Rape Trials and Sexual History Evidence

2017 ◽  
Vol 81 (5) ◽  
pp. 367-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare McGlynn
Keyword(s):  
Research Data ◽  
Sexual History ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
Rape Trials ◽  
The Law ◽  
Court Of Appeal

Despite repeated legislative attempts to restrict the use of sexual history evidence in rape trials, it continues to be admitted in many cases, causing considerable debate and leading to further attempts to reform the law. In this light, this article examines afresh the admissibility of sexual history evidence in rape trials. It focuses particularly on evidence relating to persons other than the accused (third-party evidence), following the recent controversial judgment of the Court of Appeal in R v Ched Evans where such evidence was introduced. The justifications for restricting sexual history evidence are considered, as well as research data on how often it is being used. Following an analysis of the current law, the article concludes that urgent reform is needed and a number of law reform options are examined.

scholarly journals Queering Judgment

2017 ◽  
Vol 81 (5) ◽  
pp. 417-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Sexual Offence ◽  
Identity Fraud ◽  
Appeal Decision ◽  
English Law ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Court Of Appeal

This article is a response to a series of recent successful sexual offence prosecutions brought against transgender and other gender non-conforming people for gender identity fraud, and specifically to Leveson LJ’s judgment in the Court of Appeal decision of R v McNally. The decision is now the leading authority on sexual fraud generally, and gender identity fraud specifically, under English law. The response will take the form of an academic judgment, in this instance a dissenting or counter-judgment. The article will (i) present the facts of the case, (ii) provide some detail regarding the developing jurisprudence of the courts regarding sexual fraud, (iii) preface the counter-judgment with an explanation of why an exercise in academic judgement-writing is valuable, (iv) consider a queer approach to law, and detail some queer principles around which the counter-judgment will be organised and (v) present the counter-judgment, highlighting not only that McNally could have been decided differently, but that it ought to have been decided differently.

The Defective Premises Act 1972—Defective Law and Defective Law Reform

1974 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Liability ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
The Law ◽  
Draft Bill ◽  
Civil Remedy ◽  
Law Commission ◽  
Poor Show

The Defective Premises Act 1972—which did not come into force until 1 January 1974—was intended to do three things: first, it was intended to create a new civil remedy against incompetent architects and jerry builders who design or build bad dwelling-houses; secondly, it was intended to abolish the anomalous immunity of vendors and lessors from negligence actions; and thirdly, it was intended to widen the liability of landlords for defects in the premises which they let. The Act is based on the draft Bill annexed to the Law Commission's fortieth report, “Civil Liability of Vendors and Lessors of Defective Premises”—although in the Act the Law Commission's proposals have been considerably watered down. During the passage of the Act through Parliament the Law Commission was congratulated on its “remarkable piece of work,” and comentators have since welcomed it, either without criticism or else with fulsome praise. So excited was everyone by the label “law reform” that no one seems to have pointed out a number of obvious defects in the Law Commission's original proposals, defects which were multiplied when those proposals were heavily watered down. The final measure is open to a number of criticisms. It is, with all due respect to the Law Commission and to the sponsors of the Bill, a measure which adopts excessively cumbrous means to achieve relatively modest ends; which is drafted in terms which are longwinded, ugly and obscure; and which ultimately changes little—a poor show in view of the complications it creates in the process.

The Licensee's Period of Grace: Bellotti Reconsidered

1996 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-240
Author(s):  
Tamara Kerbel
Keyword(s):  
Privy Council ◽  
Railway Company ◽  
Short Notice ◽  
Appeal Decision ◽  
The Law ◽  
Canadian Pacific Railway ◽  
Court Of Appeal

At present the law fails to provide an adequate balance between the interests of licensor and licensee when a licensor revokes a licence but gives an unreasonably short notice. The prevailing orthodoxy has followed the Court of Appeal decision in Minister of Health v. Bellotti. This article will argue that the consequences of this decision have proved disastrous for both licensors and licensees. In direct conflict with Bellotti is the Privy Council authority of Canadian Pacific Railway Company v. The King.

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