Tuesday 4 November 2008

French Bill on piracy

Due to an article I need to finish, no time to investigate this and read the Parliamentary Bill and debates, but it's worth looking at it, especially in comparison with Europen policy
French Senate Approves 3 Strikes Law (3 November 2008)

The French website Juriscom explains a bit more the details of the Bill, although sorry it is all in French. "Lecture au Sénat du projet ''Création et Internet'' le 29 octobre : risposte attendue contre la réponse graduée" 21 October 2008 on Juriscom.net http://www.juriscom.net
The comments from J-L. Fandiari are as follow: the European Commission just voted that no restriction should be imposed regarding rights and liberties without a decision from the judiciary, in compliance with ARticle 11 of the Charter on Fundamental Rights. The French Bill seems to do all the contrary: no judicial decision, only the administrative authority or quango type called HADOPI will serve the notice to offenders; no clear criminal offence refered to by the text; constitutional issues. The latter is definitely interesting as Article 55 of the Constitution forbids an Act to be contrary to European law or any other treaties; thus the judiciary has the right to strike the law down; but then no judiciary is at first instance competent in the Bill; so it will fall upon the Conseil d'ETat the French supreme court for administrative law to decide on appeal/judicial review to settle the issue.

For the Parliamentary procedure, see the Senat website: http://www.senat.fr/dossierleg/pjl07-405.html The Bill has been declared urgent and strangely enough, it is called the "little Act" (petite loi). Is it because it is controversial?

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