Suchergebnisse

The paper analyzes the rulings of the Supreme Court of iceland in rape cases after changes in the penal code in 1992 and 2007. The study employs discourse analysis in which legitimizing principles are identified. The aim of the paper is to explore whether victim blaming, misogyny or other such attitudes are reflected in the rul­ings. The paper concludes that the rulings' focus is mainly on physical abuse and violence although less emphasis is put on that after the changes in the penal code. Mental harm caused by rape is often given little attention or even completely igno­red. One main conclusion is that rape myths are reflected in the rulings and victim blaming is common although it is decreasing. it is also apparent that the emphasis on victim blaming diminishes if the perpetrator is of foreign origin.

Medieval Icelandic law contains no provisions about copyright. Authors used without hesitation narrative texts by others, but poets were paid for composing laudatory poems about kings and narrators for telling stories at their courts. The art of storytelling became a speciality of Icelanders, who were also hired to write biographies of Norwegian kings. It was considered reprehensible to use the poetry of others as one's own work. Two Norwegian poets may have got the cognomens skáldaspillir (Destroyer of poets?) and illskælda (Bad or Evil poet?) for plagiarism. An Icelandic poet composed a laudatory poem about a woman but changed it to fit another one, receiving a bitter revenge. In Icelandic sagas stanzas occur frequently and, unlike borrowings in prose, their authors are usually named. In the medieval law of Iceland it is forbidden to compose about people not only derogatory but also laudatory poetry. Conceivably it has been considered to give the author some kind of power over the person who was the subject of the poetry. Proper copyright, though, does not occur in Icelandic law until the beginning of the twentieth century.