Friday, July 22, 2005

Huh?

This isn't liberal or conservative or libertarian. This is just one of those "Huh?" stories:
Roman Polanski has been awarded £50,000 libel damages from a magazine which said he propositioned a woman shortly after his wife was murdered in 1969.

(snip...)

Outside court, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter said: "I find it amazing that a man who lives in France can sue a magazine that is published in America in a British courtroom.

"As a father of four children, one of whom is a 12-year-old daughter, I find it equally outrageous that this story is considered defamatory, given the fact that Mr Polanski cannot be here because he slept with a 13-year-old girl a quarter of a century ago."
Sidebar: Note how Vanity Fair uses the CBS defense? "Vanity Fair publisher Conde Nast had conceded the article was inaccurate, but said the gist of it held true."

A man on the run from the American legal system for sleeping with a 13-year-old can evade justice in American courtrooms, gain access to European civil courts, and win a civil suit against an American publication!

Tell me again why we need to be like the Europeans?