Justice by Algorithm
Our use of language is under attack from an all-consuming Artificial Intelligence. David Langwallner responds
Society
Justice by Algorithm
Our use of language is under attack from an all-consuming Artificial Intelligence. David Langwallner responds
Piano Van on the N17
Word came through from cousin Ed in Limerick: ‘Good news, I’ve a piano for you that’ll fit in Paul’s van.’ ‘Great stuff’ I enthused, blithely disregarding the challenge of getting it as far as my house in Sligo, let alone up the steps and through the door. Remarkably, cousin Paul agreed to make the trip … Read more
On the Question of Immigration
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is perhaps best understood as the culmination of the Enlightenment tradition of constitutionalism, hedged in legalistic language of proportionality and balance. It asserts that people have a right – or at the very least the right to have rights – to rely on the Convention when a domestic … Read more
Banksy and Protest Rights: The View from The Robing Room
As I sauntered from the Old Bailey past the RCJ the Banksy painting caricaturing a judge attacking a protester was no longer even a ghostly shadow, but it very much remains in the public domain, after reports emerged that it had been reported as criminal damage. On September 25, on Old Brompton Road, a comprehensive … Read more
Ностальгия
‘I confess I do not believe in time.’ Vladimir Nabokov On a hostel rooftop in Morocco, I met a Russian man who had not been home since the war broke out. I was there to catch the last of the sun and read my book in peace so when he first introduced himself I made … Read more
A Visit to the Hague
Late last year HHJ Gumpert KC – one of the judges in the formidable fortress that is Woolwich Crown Court the flagship anti-terrorism court in the U.K. – kindly secured for me a visit to the ICC out of court time. The tour was given by a former member of the team he led in … Read more
The Relevance of Jurisprudence to Law Part 3
The remains of unquestionably the greatest intellect of the nineteenth century, Karl Marx, are buried in Highgate Cemetery in London. I recently tossed a red rose on the site. I doubt whether Judge Gerard Hogan, to whom I have addressed previous articles in this series, or any other legal positivist, would do likewise. While positivists … Read more
The Relevance of Jurisprudence to Law Part 2
In the first part of this series, London-based barrister, who taught Jurisprudence for sixteen years in the Honorable Society of the King’s Inns in Dublin, David Langwallner takes issue with Irish Supreme Court Justice Gerard Hogan devotion to Legal Positivism, instead arguing morality and politics should inform the law. He elaborates further on that debate … Read more
The Relevance of Jurisprudence to Law Part 1
This article is a response to Supreme Court Justice Gerard Hogan’s Annual Hale Lecture in Trinity College, Dublin in November 2023 on the on the topic of: ‘Grundnormen in UK and Irish Constitutional Law,’ and I thank him for sending it to me. The grundnormen is a creation of the legendary Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen. … Read more
Guilt and Innocence in the Criminal Justice System Part 2
As the founder of the now seemingly inactive Irish Innocence Project, and co-founder of The European Innocence Network, I staunchly oppose the death penalty, with exceptions for certain Crimes Against Humanity. I have personally visited and represented individuals on death row in Kenya and the U.S.. This underscores the critical need for our legal system … Read more
Fear, Class, and Universal Basic Income
On the April 13 2024, a man stabbed several people in a shopping centre in Sydney. The morning after, I was walking past the Four Courts in Dublin, when a man approached me making a stabbing motion in the air. I fixed my eyes on him as my heart sped up, but it stopped as … Read more
Guilt and Innocence in the Criminal Justice System Part 1
I have just finished representing a client in a murder case and have plenty to reflect on about guilt and innocence. This is a two-part excursus for Cassandra Voices dealing first with why certain people are found guilty of crimes they did not commit. The Innocence Project, with which I was involved over many years, … Read more
Assange Case: a partial victory or another ominous step towards extradition?
Anyone watching the agonizing progress of the Julian Assange case proceeding through the U.K. justice system will be aware that it’s highly unlikely that any judge will simply throw open the gates of Belmarsh prison in assent to calls to ‘Free Assange’. Sadly for those sympathetic to him, extradition has inched ever closer over the … Read more
Applying Hitchens’s Razor: Jim Sheridan and Ian Bailey
Jim Sheridan is a significant figure in the international film industry because of his creativity and talent. He has made an influential documentary, ‘Murder at the Cottage’, about the Sophie Toscan du Plantier case. In the recent Cassandra Voices Podcast, he explained why he believed Ian Bailey is innocent and much maligned. In a recent … Read more
A Whistleblower’s Motive
In a seminal scene at the end of the film Joker (2019) the eponymous character, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is being interviewed by Robert de Niro’s character, the TV talk show host Murray Franklin. The Joker asks: “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and … Read more
Being Irish
This Ireland exists. And should one travel there and not find it, then they have not looked closely enough.. Hugo Hamilton: The Island of Talking – In the footsteps of Heinrich Boll #IrelandisFull: the migration of this phrase from the far-right into the mainstream is an awful feature of our woe-begotten times. It begs the … Read more
White Christmas
Editor’s Note: Readers of a sensitive disposition may find aspects of this account of drug-taking and sex difficult to stomach, but we believe this is a story worth telling. Our mission is to provide a home for independent voices that inspire new thinking. ***** I awake, into my usual morning of panic but today might … Read more
My Team / Your Team
In the first part of his essay concerning his enduring lifelong fandom of Manchester City FC, and the club’s current owners’ wealth vis-á-vis his left-wing politics, Desmond Traynor recounts his origin story as a supporter of the club, and offers a critique of the Irish soccer commentariat’s biased attitude to City’s success. After many years … Read more
Facilitating the Dirty Business of the State
Both as a lawyer and Supreme Court judge, Louis Brandeis was an inveterate opponent of big business interests. Less well known than his other contributions, is that he a co-authored a text in the 1890 Harvard Law Review that invented a privacy right, which has steadily been eroded in criminal justice. Indeed, as a judge … Read more
Gay?
In the insular, it felt like it at times, enforced statelet of Northern Ireland, sexual repression was a thing. (And probably still is.) Faggot. Queer. Bent. Gayboy. Bender. Fruit. OOOOooooooooo like an effeminate caricature: going around, mincing, limp-wristed, and nothing but a bum-watching, bumboy. These were some of the names I heard levied at me … Read more