NewsBrands Ireland welcomes Supreme Court decision to protect journalistic sources

Supreme Court upholds the Court of Appeal’s finding that a warrant obtained by gardaí to search journalist Emmett Corcoran’s home and to seize his phone in 2019 was invalid and should be quashed

NewsBrands Ireland welcomes the decision by the Supreme Court to reject the Garda Commissioner’s appeal against a decision which voided the seizing of a journalist’s phone.

The seven-judge Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s finding that a warrant obtained by gardaí to search journalist Emmett Corcoran’s home and to seize his phone in 2019 was invalid and should be quashed.

The case was unanimously dismissed by the court comprising the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hogan, Mr Justice Collins, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley, Ms Justice Marie Baker, Mr Justice Peter Charleton and Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan said that without some constitutional protection of the media’s right to protect sources, journalists “cannot be reasonably be expected to discharge their functions of educating public opinion and holding government to account in the manner expressly provided for in article 40.6.1 of the Constitution”.

Judge Hogan he commented that “without a free press there is no democracy in the manner required as part of the State’s constitutional identity as provided for in article five of the Constitution”. “The general protection of sources is integral to a free press,” he added.

For further details, please see report from Irish Times reporter Aodhan O’Faolain here

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For further details please contact Lisa Buckley, NewsBrands Ireland, lbuckley@newsbrands.ie