Word: courtly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...court left it up to Britain to bring its contempt law into line with the principles of a free press. There is no sanction if Britain does not, other than international embarrassment...
...Sunday Times made it clear that Distillers had been miserly with the Thalidomide victims. The stories provoked public outrage and pressured Distillers to raise its original settlement offer sevenfold, from an average of about $25,000 per child to $175,000. The articles were clearly in contempt of court. But the Sunday Times managed to avoid fines and jail terms by striking a deal: it agreed to show its final-and most damning-article to the government before publishing it. That article, detailing how Distillers had been negligent in selling the dangerous drug in the first place, was firmly banned...
Final vindication for the Sunday Times came from the Court of Human Rights last week. The 11-to-9 decision stopped short of saying that Britain's law of contempt itself violates the broadly worded guarantee of free expression in the charter, which also recognizes the need to protect the "authority of the judiciary." But banning the final Thalidomide article simply was not "necessary," said the Strasbourg judges. In this case, they added, the public's right to know was more important...
...Thornberry, an international lawyer who has brought more than 100 cases to Strasbourg. Indeed, the human rights commission refuses to hear most cases and tries to settle the rest amicably. Only when that fails, or a really significant test like the Sunday Times case comes along, does the full court pass judgment on one of its member nations...
...than against any other country. Unlike many other European countries, England does not recognize the European human rights convention as national law. Its own constitution is largely unwritten; there is no bill of rights set above the power of Parliament. That makes it more difficult to persuade a British court that the government has trespassed on individual rights. And it helps explain why so many Britons turn to Strasbourg for redress...