RePUGnant?

Here's an American case that is of interest both to divorce lawyers and to bloggers. In Garrido v. Krasnansky the Vermont Family Court has ordered the husband, William Krasnansky, to stop posting items about his wife and their failed marriage on his blog, 'LookAtMyPug's Jurnull', as reported in The New York Times. As the report indicates, the case raises issues about both spousal harassment and free speech.

Unrepentant, Mr. Krasnansky has refused to take down his blog, calling it “a deliberate act of civil disobedience.” He calls the blog "A Work Of Fiction", but a law professor advises that this might not protect him in a defamation claim, "especially if the court found that readers were likely to perceive the postings as factual statements about a real person and if the statements were false". Subject to this, the issue is between Ms. Garrido's right to protection from harassment (obviously a common thing for a divorce court to deal with), and Mr. Krasnansky's constitutional right to free speech, which his lawyer argues that the order breaches. It is not at all clear which of these should prevail, although, as the report points out, Ms. Garrido is certainly on stronger ground with her claim that Mr. Krasnansky has put excerpts from her old journals on the blog.