Book Description

This consultation paper sets out the Government's proposals for reform of the law on defamation, aiming to achieve balance between protection of freedom of speech and the protection of reputation. The Government wants to ensure that the threat of libel proceedings is not used to frustrate robust scientific and academic debate, or to impede responsible investigative journalism and the valuable work undertaken by nongovernmental organisations. Issues included in the draft Bill are as follows: a new requirement that a statement must have caused substantial harm in order for it to be defamatory; a new statutory defence of responsible publication on matters of public interest; a statutory defence of truth (replacing the current common law defence of justification); a statutory defence of honest opinion (replacing the current common law defence of fair/honest comment); provisions updating and extending the circumstances in which the defences of absolute and qualified privilege are available; introduction of a single publication rule to prevent an action being brought in relation to publication of the same material by the same publisher after a one year limitation period has passed; action to address libel tourism by ensuring a court will not accept jurisdiction unless satisfied that England and Wales is clearly the most appropriate place to bring an action against someone who is not domiciled in the UK or an EU Member State; removal of the presumption in favour of jury trial, so that the judge would have a discretion to order jury trial where it is in the interests of justice.