I have from time to time idly wondered why eurotrib debate of laws and their applications hither and yon are received with short shrift by comparison to deconstruction of political personalities. I have answered my own question, "sovereignty of 28+ nations, multiples of cultures tenuously united by treaties". I fondly recall though occasional citations and practice in interrogations provoked more so by EU directives than UN charters and hastily argued principles of "English law."

In this instance naturally I turn to the personal "right" of free speech, or "expression," codified elsewhere beside the tissue-thin US Bill of Rights. I choose the UK because the text is English, notorious protection against libel, and the proverbial bell that has not rung.

Behold the Human Rights Act 1998, Art. 10 as rendered, is not encouraging. In effect it is a list of restrictions, or proscriptions, of "opinion" forcing the burden to prove innocence onto the aggrieved, the suspected, the prosecuted.

Here a counter-intuitive defense (2009) titled Freedom of Expression in the United Kingdom Under the Human Rights Act of 1998 elaborates ... with case law and statutory citations.

English law has traditionally taken little or no notice of freedom of speech. ... Admittedly there has been no system of administrative press censorship since 1694, and in practice the media and individual publishers have enjoyed greater freedom of expression in England than they have in other European countries. ... But the freedom enjoyed no clear constitutional status; it was difficult to predict when courts would recognize it as important to the resolution of particular cases. Consequently, publishers could not rely with any great confidence on a right to free speech.

Now ... [r]ights, which used to be of only uncertain common law status, are explicitly recognized by the HRA. Under this legislation, the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR or "Convention") is protected by law in the United Kingdom.

&tc.

I'm left to wonder therefore whether or when litigation of censorship may proceed anywhere in the world.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.