Introduction However scant the support provided by the legal process, as a lawyer I am drawn to rights-driven considerations. In terms of recent context – blinkered by the present over-reaction – Obama’s climate change initiative has been overturned by Trump, who effectively tore up the Kyoto Accord. The internal U.S. solution to climate issues is … Read more
Introduction What I don’t find nice, and I really don’t need, is people clapping. I don’t need rainbows. I don’t care if people clap until their hands bleed with rainbows tattooed on their faces. I don’t even (whisper it) need Colonel Tom, lovely man as he clearly is… The coronavirus crisis has shone a light … Read more
I didn’t particularly want to write this article. I didn’t want to get involved in the whole online social media circus of opinion and rebuttal, triggering and offense. But I feel like I have something to say, and what I have to say is important. So I’ll speak my truth. About a month ago, I … Read more
Today is a better day, with the roof of my home intact and my family and I bundled up inside; in an effort to comply with the rules handed down to fight against the invisible ‘enemy’, whose name is Covid-19. Regardless, this is what the government is telling me. That and I’m doing my Leaving … Read more
Antiga, Mui Nobre, Sempre Leal e Invicta, the city of Porto, a place so magical, strong and with such welcoming people, full of life and undeniable beauty, alas did not avoid the pandemic. Today it is one of the epicentres of the contagion in Portugal. For anyone who have been living in the city for … Read more
Here’s Mr Pip, aged parent”, said Wemmick, and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him Mr Pip, that’s what he likes. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations Dickens’s Aged Parent, or ‘the AP’, looks contented as he pokes his fire. Most of us locked-down septuagenarians, I suspect, are restless to … Read more
In his recent book, Trials of the State Law and the Decline of Politics, (Profile Books) 2019 Jonathan Sumption argues for judicial deference to the Separation of Powers between the legislative, executive and judiciary branches, warning about the politicization of the latter. He argues that courts have assumed too much power, negating the political process, … Read more
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has seen a deluge of misleading advice, false rumours, and coordinated attempts to contravene expert advice. Over the years, it’s become popular to collectively refer to this as fake news. This was a term that gained traction throughout the 2016 Presidential Election in the United States, and has become … Read more
Years ago, arriving late one evening in Ostende by train – always my favourite means of travel – from Paris, I went to the first hotel I spotted: The OLD SHAKESPEARE HOTEL. I booked a room and, feeling expansive after a film shoot in Sud Tirol, asked the blonde receptionist for directions to the best restaurant in … Read more
On Thursday 19th of March, the Dáil passed emergency legislation in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Health (Preservation and Protection and other Emergency Measures in the Public Interest) Bill has two main features. The first are financial measures assisting those affected, protecting living standards, and maintaining spending in the economy. The second aspect concerns … Read more