The difficulty of judging jests: introduction

Abstract

On 25 September 2012, in Sorgues, in Southeastern France, a three-year old child was sent to preschool with a T-shirt reading "je suis une bombe!" [I am a bomb!] on one side, and "Jihad, né le 11 septembre" [Jihad, born on September 11th] on the other.The T-shirt played on the child's actual name (Jihad, which is common in the Arab world) and date of birth (which was actually September 11th).Jihad's uncle had given him the T-shirt as a birthday present, and asked his sister (Jihad's mother) to have the child wear it at preschool at least once.Both adults claimed that they only intended this as a joke.However, upon seeing the T-shirt while helping the child to change in the bathroom, the preschool's director was anything but amused; she reported the incident to the local prosecutor, who then charged Jihad's uncle and mother with glorification of terrorism (or "apologie de crimes d'atteintes volontaires à la vie" [apology for crimes of willful attacks on life]).Should the T-shirt be ultimately considered as an off-color joke, as a deliberate insult to the victims of 9/11, or as an outright apology for terrorism?And provided that the uncle did mean it as a joke, to what extent should he be held accountable for those words being construed as a glorification of terrorism?Whose interpretation should be considered legally relevant in this respect, regardless of the original intention?This is just one example of the intricate questions posed by humor in the context of free-speech adjudication.According to the Appeal Court of Nîmes, the T-shirt could reasonably be interpreted as a glorification of the 9/11 attacks.As a result, Jihad's uncle was given a two-month suspended prison sentence, which was accompanied by a €4,000 fine, while Jihad's mother received a one-month suspended sentence and a €2,000 fine.Under the name Z.B. v. France, the case was subsequently brought to the European Court of Human

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