French Court Rejects Sarah Palin’s Free Speech Theories With Extreme Prejudice
By There are plausible theories of free speech, and then there are the theories of the 2008 Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States, which center around the idea that criticizing a conservative public figure constitutes a violation of his or her First Amendment rights. As djw reported last year, an academic who received a very mild bad review decided to try out Palin’s approach through a suit in the French courts. Fortunately, the Tribunal de Grand Instance de Paris has responded appropriately:
A French court has dismissed a criminal-libel charge brought against a journal editor over a negative book review and ordered the plaintiff to pay punitive damages. The editor, Joseph H.H. Weiler, a professor at New York University’s School of Law, said he had been awarded €8,000 (about $11,000) as a result of the action brought against him by Karin N. Calvo-Goller, a senior lecturer at the Academic Center of Law & Business, in Israel.
[…]
In the ruling, the court said the review expressed a scientific opinion of the book and did not go beyond the kind of criticism to which all authors of intellectual work subject themselves when they publish. It agreed with Mr. Weiler’s contention that the case did not properly fall within its jurisdiction anyway. It concluded that Ms. Calvo-Goller had engaged in forum shopping and had shown bad faith in bringing the complaint. It said it was ordering the plaintiff to pay the €8,000 to Mr. Weiler in reparation for the harm caused by the improper nature of her action.
Mr. Weiler has now posted an account of the ruling on his journal’s blog, EJIL: Talk!
Weiler should never have been put through this, but it’s good that at least his rights were vindicated, and that France has declined to be an outlet for frivolous libel tourism. [via]