ReconfigBehSci. (2021, January 18). Calling lawyers, historians, and political scientists. A thread on the value of life. I’m still stunned by Lord Sumption, ex-judge on UK’s Supreme Court, now anti-lockdown campaigner, publicly stating that the life of a woman with stage 4 bowel cancer was ‘less valuable’ 1/4 [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1351118909886312449

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Interesting that this practice stems from the imposition of what looks like racist policies.

Dave, D. M., Friedson, A. I., Matsuzawa, K., McNichols, D., & Sabia, J. J. (2020). Did the Wisconsin Supreme Court Restart a COVID-19 Epidemic? Evidence from a Natural Experiment (Working Paper No. 27322; Working Paper Series). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w27322

"Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on January 29, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Justice Ginsburg died of complications related to the thoracic injuries she sustained in November, 2018."

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If the Imputation is defamatory per se, necessary mens rea will be presumed - The principle laid down here, shifts the onus to prove to the defendant if the imputations are prima facie defamatory, and releases the burden from the complainant to prove that the allegations caused harm to his reputation

In every society there needs to be a balance between the right to speech/expression and the right not to be defamed.

The John Thomas vs Dr. K. Jagadeesan clears two concepts:

1. If imputations are prima facie libellous or per se defamatory, the complainant need not establish that the imputations had indeed defamed or damaged him/her
2. If a definite company, association or group of persons are defamed, any of the aggrieved director or office holder can feel aggrieved by the offence.

New York Times Editorial

Justice Thurgood Marshall's dissent was more faithful to the evidence: ''A group of white citizens,'' he wrote, ''has decided to act to keep Negro citizens from traveling through their urban 'utopia,' and the city has placed its seal of approval on the scheme.'' Despite a national commitment to equality, blacks were being kept quite literally in their place.