Posted 9:32 PM by Floyd

Drudge and later Instapundit linked to this case of censorship in France:

A Paris court last night halted publication of a book by a former investigating magistrate that claims France is institutionally corrupt.

The book by Eva Joly, who uncovered political and financial corruption at the Elf oil company, is the first by a judge to have been blocked by the French courts.

The court ruled that publication of Is This The World We Want To Live In? might prejudice the trial of former Elf executives, now in its third month, which has already revealed the extent of political and financial corruption in France.

So, a reporter investigates the government and finds corruption, which leads to a trial ... and any further findings of corruption cannot be published for several months, or longer. (And what about the pre-trial proceedings? Wouldn't publication of this book have been suppressed then, under the same logic?) Great system.

On Monday Jeff Jarvis smacked around the proposed Council of Europe doctrine mandating a right to reply on web pages. (I blogged about this two posts back; what I dislike most about Blogger is that I cannot get a link to an earlier post in the edit page.) Folks from France and Germany were right there to stand up for their right to have their browser space parcelled up and distributed to their opponents. One made sweet dewy eyes and asked in his best baby Jesus voice, "Is there a reason why you are opposed to the idea of media correcting their mistakes?"

I bet you can find plenty of people willing to defend France's right to sit on Joly's work for the rest of 2003. "Is there a reason why you are opposed to the idea of people getting a fair trial?"