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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

A bit of good news - 'strangled' wife overturns claims she libelled husband.

35 replies

truthisarevolutionaryact · 03/04/2019 12:47

www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-6881123/Woman-51-WINS-supreme-court-fight-accused-libelling-ex-husband.html

She was supported by the brilliant Harriet Wistrich / Centre for Women'd Justice.

Flowers for her.

OP posts:
ChickenonaMug · 03/04/2019 13:29

This is great news.

nauticant · 03/04/2019 13:28

I can understand your concern, I just wanted to say that it didn't look like the Supreme Court had introduced some new principle of interpretation into UK law.

RepealTheGRA · 03/04/2019 13:23

OK thanks nauticant glad it doesn’t ring alarm bells with you. Maybe I’m being overly cynical!

nauticant · 03/04/2019 13:20

That doesn't automatically ring alarm bells with me RepealTheGRA since that follows many areas of law where in looking for meaning one should have regard to dictionaries but should also think about the use of the word(s) in context.

I'm very pleased to see this decision.

Having written that, I went looking for another report and found this in The Times:

Mr Justice Mitting, the High Court judge who heard the initial claim, said that he referred to the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the verb “strangle” and decided that Ms Stoker’s post meant that her ex-husband had tried to kill her.
...
The Supreme Court justices ruled that Mr Justice Mitting had erred in law by using dictionary definitions as the starting point of his analysis of the meaning of Ms Stocker’s Facebook comment. The judges also found that the High Court judge had failed properly to take into account the context of the post.

RepealTheGRA · 03/04/2019 13:04

Can I put a downer on things Blush (sorry).

I saw on the news that the Supreme Court said that the high court was ‘overly reliant on the dictionary definition of words’ does that have implications elsewhere?

Other than that. Result! Very good news especially in view of the ‘right to shag yer wife’ bollocks.

JessicaWakefieldSVH · 03/04/2019 12:57

I’m so pleased for her. He’s a horrible bully.

truthisarevolutionaryact · 03/04/2019 12:55

Somerville - your own courageous actions brought a lot of us much cheer today Flowers

OP posts:
Somerville · 03/04/2019 12:53

This is the only cheerful bit of news all week.

Barracker · 03/04/2019 12:52

Relief.
Very good news.

Whatisthisfuckery · 03/04/2019 12:51

hurrah, words actually mean something.

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