A recent article in the Toronto Star discusses whether the names of parties in administrative tribunal reports, and also in court case reports, should be anonymised.

But the power of the Internet is also raising privacy alarms. In a recent speech to the Canadian Bar Association, federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart raised concerns that “highly sensitive personal information” is making it onto the Internet in documents and rulings posted online by federal tribunals. “The open court rule, which is extremely historically important, has now become distorted by the effect of massive search engines,” Stoddart later told reporters.

Names are traditionally replaced by initials in German court reports. The concern for privacy seems to outweigh the public’s right to know. This is discussed comparatively at some length by Gerhard Knerr in a 2004 article, Die Namensnennung bei der Publikation gerichtlicher Entscheidungen

In der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wird der ganz überwiegende Teil der Gerichtsentscheidungen ohne die Nennung der in den Originalen enthaltenen Namen veröffentlicht. Mindestens seit den 70er Jahren erfolgt die Entscheidungspublikation durchgängig anonym. Allerdings gilt dies nicht ganz ohne Ausnahmen. So werden etwa die Namen Prominenter, insbesondere absoluter Personen der Zeitgeschichte, bis in die jüngste Zeit regelmäßig genannt. Eines der bekanntesten Beispiele sind die zahlreichen Entscheidungen bezüglich Caroline von Monaco.

In Germany, most court decisions are published without the names. Since at least the 1970s, there has been anonymity – but with exceptions, for example the names of famous people (Princess Caroline of Monaco is a well-known example).

Ganz anders sieht die Praxis der europäischen Gerichte, also des Europäischen Gerichtshofs (EuGH) und des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte (EGMR), aus. Der EuGH veröffentlicht seine Entscheidungen in aller Regel unter voller Nennung der Namen aller Parteien und sonstigen Verfahrensbeteiligten sowie der Richter. Bekannte Beispiele sind etwa die Fälle Stauder (Ulm), Francovich und Keck. Nur ganz ausnahmsweise sieht der EuGH von einer Namensnennung ab, bisweilen jedoch nicht einmal dann, wenn die Entscheidungen Informationen aus der Privat- und Intimsphäre der Betroffenen beinhalten, etwa im Fall Lisa Jacqueline Grant gegen South-West Trains Ltd(. Auch der EGMR nennt von wenigen Ausnahmen abgesehen die Namen der Parteien, etwa in den Fällen Axen und Pretto.

The practice is different in the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human rights. The parties are usually named.

Auch in anderen Staaten, insbesondere denen des angelsächsischen Rechtskreises, werden die Entscheidungen namentlich veröffentlicht und in späteren Rechtsstreitigkeiten und der Literatur nach den Namen der Parteien zitiert. Beispiele sind Erie R. R. v. Tompkins oder Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung v. Rayner & Keeler Ltd. Hiermit auch ein verfassungspolitischer Zweck verfolgt, nämlich die Kontrolle der Rechtsprechung durch die demokratische Öffentlichkeit. Nur in Ausnahmefällen werden die Parteinamen durch fiktive Bezeichnungen ersetzt, so in dem Abtreibungsfall “Roe v. Wade”.

Parties are usually named in other countries too, especially in the common-law jurisdictions. It’s very rare to use pseudonyms – this was done in the Roe v. Wade abortion case, for example.

This is sometimes a problem when one translates decisions. It can be useful to know the names, for example to work out which is a company or to determine if male or female, or to look up the case in the newspapers for more background. I can even recall a case where the judges’ names had been blacked out (I’m told this may be done in certain cases to protect the judge, for instance terrorism matters, but this wasn’t the case here). And I can remember being able to read the names when I held a fax against the light once, surprisingly.

(Thanks to Isabella)

The New York Times discusses what judges wear in the USA:

Justice Allen, 61, a judge since 1986, certainly is no fashion divo. He described his formula for picking his shirts in the morning: whatever is clean and at the top of the drawer. When he gets to work, he searches the dozen or so ties draped over a blue chair in his office for one that matches his shirt. His lucky tie, reserved for Fridays with a light caseload, has a likeness of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. (He has about a dozen more “retired” ties in a closet.)

(Via The Seamless Web)

Further to discussion in the comments in the last entry, when I think of duels I think of pistols – the form of fencing with swords seems more Continental. Incidentally, it appears that it doesn’t fit with the Nazi images in the Citroen advert, as the corporations were banned in the Third Reich.

In the late 1960s I encountered law students in Erlangen involved in schlagende Verbindungen – the students’ associations that still kept up the tradition of fencing without complete protection. The thing to do was to get a wound on the side of the face, a Schmiss. It seemed a different world from 1968 Berlin. The liberal past of the students’ organizations had been left behind.

Von der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis in die 1930er Jahre war der Schmiss das Erkennungszeichen mitteleuropäischer Akademiker schlechthin, das durchaus mit Stolz getragen wurde, symbolisierte es doch das nach damaliger Auffassung herrschende Ideal eines tatkräftigen, unerschrockenen Mannes, der auch vor bedrohlichen Situationen nicht zurückschreckt.

I find a Wikipedia article on Academic fencing that has all these terms explained – the equivalent German article is Mensur. See comments to the effect that the English Wikipedia entry is rather biased in favour of the associations.

Until the first half of the 19th century all types of academic fencing can be seen as duels, since all fencing with sharp weapons was about honour. No combat with sharp blades took place without a formal insult. Compared to pistol duels, these events were quite harmless. The fight was regularly ended when an injury occurred which caused a wound with a length of at least one inch and with at least one drop of blood coming out from it. It was not uncommon that students fought approximately 10 to 30 duels of that kind during their university years.[citation needed]
…
During the first half of the 19th century and some of the 18th century, students believed that the character of a person could easily be judged by watching him fight with sharp blades under strict regulations. Academic fencing was more and more seen as a kind of personality training by showing countenance and fairness even in dangerous situations. Student corporations demanded that their members fight at least one duel with sharp blades during their university time. The problem was that some peaceful students had nobody to offend them. The solution was a kind of formal insult which did not actually infringe honour but was just seen as a challenge for fencing. The standard wording was dummer Junge (German for “silly boy”).

Known in Eastern Europe before communism. Banned in the Third Reich (apparently the corps members refused to throw out their Jewish members – but that is probably a legend, see comments).

An interesting long article by Jonathan Green, fairly recent (can’t read the date) .

Many claim they are little short of Nazis, who spend their time fighting and drinking, preaching for the far right and recruiting members to a furtive, elitist club whose sinister tentacles of influence stretch all the way to the corridors of power in modern Germany: through politics, business, law and medicine. Yet the corps claim that they are maligned – that they are politically neutral, merely clinging to a all-male sense of camaraderie and tradition.

Konstantin presents a Citroen ad (Youtube clip).

The commenters are at each others’ throats. Is it a compliment to Germany to revive a touch of Obersalzberg?

The last three Transblawg posts or so required readers to enter a password.

This is because, suddenly, when I write a new entry, the password field is filled in. I can clear it.

I thought it was my fault, but no, it is the wonderful new Firefox:

Here’s the word from the Serendipity forum:

Yeah, a cool new feature of Firefox3 is that it auto-fills in your login password everyhwere where a fieldname matches, independently of whether you entered in there or not. Great for CMSes Very Happy

You must disable autocompletion somehow, so that firefox no longer auto-remembers this. I believe there’s an option to it, but I’ve never investigated it since I disabled the remember-me feature of FF3 completely as it’s useless because of this.

We cannot change the name of the input field, so I see no other solution.

(‘Very Happy’ stands for a smiley).

Perhaps I should just use another browser. Safari is better for doing the Times Sudoku, too – it doesn’t break off in the middle and delete all my answers.

Many people hate TinyURL (I suppose makeashorterlink was doomed from the outset by its length).

For them, here is HugeURL.