English libel law turns US protection for free speech on its head. Floyd Abrams considers how the UK became an international libel tribunal English defamation law is under fire. Last July, the United Nations Human Rights Committee expressed...
Tamsin Allen asks why a former intelligence agent is being denied the right to a fair hearing MI5 officers guard many secrets. But, as Stella Rimington well knows, they can tell their own personal stories providing no genuinely secret and damaging...
The House of Lords ruling on secret evidence raises the need for the admission of intercept intelligence in terror trials, says Roger Smith Nine-nil. A judicial decision of the House of Lords does not get more decisive than that. It was by this...
We need more transparency on jury trial deliberations, says Frances Gibb Does the jury system work? No one knows --- because under the present law, no disclosures can be made about what goes on when a jury retires; nor can research be conducted...
The illiberal obsession with silencing Nick Griffin and the British National Party in the run up to elections has won the party undeserved publicity, says Claire Fox “If you are not supporting Labour then … please go out and vote for one of the...
The failure to publish the long awaited report on policing tactics last summer is leading to accusations of a cover-up. Chris Ames reports The Home Office and Kent Police have buried a report on the policing of last summer’s climate camp at...
Comedy is too often constrained by preconceptions of audience reaction and the comic's own self-censoring streak, says Robin Ince “If those in charge of our society --- politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television --- can...
In the first of a series of articles on protest and free speech, Guardian reporter Paul Lewis assesses the fallout from the death of Ian Tomlinson When campaigners wave placards, march, occupy buildings and shout, their methods are dismissed as...
As the divide narrows between left and right in Britain, so too does the space for adversarial dialogue and free expression There used to be an inch of difference between the two main British political parties. But, as the Australian 1960s radical...
Justice secretary Jack Straw has announced the government will not go ahead with plans for non-jury private inquests to cover cases involving "sensitive information". Read more here