Chapter One The Press In Mauritius Media Essay

Chapter One The Press In Mauritius Media Essay For the health of democracy, access to information is really essential. In any democracy, citizens have the rights and responsibilities to participate in public matters. Knowledge about a society is obtained through free debates, newspapers, magazines, television and radio. All these are possible when there is a free and independent press. In all democratic countries, freedom of the press has been a treasured right. Press freedom is a pillar of democracy   [ 1 ]   . Often, the press is referred as the fourth pillar of a country   [ 2 ]   . Such freedom should be free from interference of the state. The preservation of the freedom of the press may be done through constitutional or legal protections. In the present chapter, the definition and the importance of the press freedom will be analyzed first. Then, the evolution and development of the written and audio-visual press in Mauritius will be examined before considering the constitutional foundation of the freedom of the pre ss of the country. 1.1 Freedom of Press 1.1.1 Definition of freedom of the press Everywhere in the world, the meaning of press freedom differs. Different countries possess different degrees of freedom of the press   [ 3 ]   . This suggests that freedom of the press is not absolute in the world   [ 4 ]   . In universal terms, defining freedom of the press is difficult. Various definitions to freedom of the press have been attributed by different scholars and in many text books. Lieberman (1953) defined freedom of the press as the right to serve, without government interference and with police protection, and the most fundamental right of freedom of information   [ 5 ]   . As for Dennis and Merrill (1996), freedom of the press is the right to communicate ideas, opinions, and information through the printed world without government restraint   [ 6 ]   . For both authors, the â€Å"right to share information† and â€Å"no government intrusion† is among the main elements of this freedom. For other scholars, free press is an independent adversary   [ 7 ]   performing the function of watchdog preventing the State from aggrandizing and abusing the rights of its citizen. Freedom of the press is not only the right of media; it is the right of the citizens also. Going back to history, in 1791, freedom of the press was legally guaranteed by the U.S Constitution, â€Å"congress shall make no lawà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦abridging the freedom of speech or of the pressà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã¢â‚¬  Freedom of the press was recognized by the National Assembly of France in the Article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. This freedom was considered to be a fundamental right in Europe and in the United States. In 1948, the United Nations declared it a universal right and adopted Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Freedom of the press is derived from the fundamental right of freedom of information. The latter is a à ¢â‚¬Å"human right and the touchstone of all the freedoms. It implies the right to gather, transmit and publish news anywhere and everywhere without fetters†Ã‚   [ 8 ]   . The rights to seek and to disseminate information are of particular importance to the press. Along with freedom of information, freedom of expression also plays an essential role in press freedom. In

Impact on labour law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Impact on labour law - Essay Example John Barrett who was a suspicious schizophrenic patient absconded immediately after his release by Gill Mezey. John Barrett reportedly killed one Dennis Finnegan aged about 50 when he was cycling through Richmond Park in South West London in the day after Barrett’s release. A domestic inquiry was held by the Trust and two reports had reprimanded Mezey’s clinical management of John Barrett. .Hospital authorities suspended Gill Mezey with full pay for her negligence from all her duties. On manslaughter charges, John Barrett was sentenced to life. Hospital authorities relied on their hospital’s disciplinary procedure and policy which, it pleaded that equivalent to a contractual authority. In the mean time, Mezey had at her own free will absolved from her clinical duties following the episode as she felt that it would facilitate her from the chance of suspension. Mezey voluntarily undertook non-clinical duties like research and teaching mainly to avoid suspension. Both St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust and South West London administration were sued by Dr. Gill Mezey for suspending her on full pay. She claimed that she incurred pecuniary losses due to her illegal suspension as she could not practice her profession. Immediately after the incident, the trust perused a series of in-house probes which culminated in disciplinary action initiated against Mezey. Earlier, she was suspended on full pay from teaching and clinical duties pending the result of the punitive hearings. Aggrieved by her suspension, Mezey brought before UK High Court a breach of contract proceedings claiming that her suspension was against the Trust’s policy which stated that no employee could be suspended until there was enough concrete proof warranting the suspension. She also preyed that there was no incorporation of disciplinary proceedings in her contract of employment and in any case, her suspension was not

Returns to Education in UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words - 1

Returns to Education in UK - Essay Example This study has analysed returns to education in the UK. This was done using the BHPS data from 1991-2008 by using an OLS regression model adapted from previous studies. The dependent variable was logarithm of hourly wage while the predictor variable tested was years of schooling, controlling for other factors. The control variables were age, sex, race and region. Diagnostic tests was conducted to check for heteroskedascity and also the presence of serial correlations and both were found not to affect the model hence the regression was run. The analysis shows that the number of years in schooling had a positive and significant effect on the logarithm of hourly wage (about 8% per year of schooling) which suggests that there were positive returns to education in the sample. This is consistent with a number of studies that have analysed the returns to education. From the R-squared results, the model accounted for 24% of the variance in hourly wages. Thus, the regression did not explain most of the variance in hourly wages but points to the fact that the number of years of schooling is a good predictor of returns in education. However, we cannot rule out endogeneity (race results) and given low overall significance of regression.