Human rights barrister Lord Lester has drawn up a defamation reform bill which he says has cross-party support and would be available to whoever wins next year’s general election.
According to the Sunday Times, the Lib Dem peer’s “moderate” bill would tackle the issues of libel tourism and the huge costs to publishers of cases brought under no win, no fee rules…
Lord Lester’s bill would:
- Reform the no-win no-fee which makes the costs so high for publishers that they often settle just to minimise their risks.
- End the rule whereby every time a web story is downloaded it counts as a new publication, and so the time limit starts again on a possible libel action.
- Prevent foreigners from suing in the British courts unless they can demonstrate that they have suffered real harm in Britain.
- Give publications a stronger public interest defence in libel cases.
- End the cash damages for claimants, saying that in most cases an apology from the publication should suffice.
The second point – ending the idea that each new appearance of a web page counts as a new publication – would be a particularly welcome change to bring libel law up to date with the modern age. That, and also the last point, would also significantly reduce the risk for bloggers.
Libel law reform was debate at the Liberal Democrat conference in the autumn, as reported on Lib Dem Voice at the time.
There is much debate to be had over the details of Lord Lester’s proposals, but perhaps the most important point is that genuine cross-party support makes these reforms a real possibility.
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2 Comments
Broadly good proposals, except that ending cash damages is not necessarily right or significant. Libel damages are always dwarfed by legal costs; what matters is cutting the legal costs.
I’m encouraged to hear his proposal has cross-party support – the sooner libel law is reformed the better.
Ending cash damages is just bizarre. There’s plenty of evidence that many people don’t see corrections to stories – or if they do, they still believe the original story – so an apology isn’t going to provide full reparation. It seems particularly odd if foreigners are going to have to show they’ve suffered significant damage in Britain, but they then aren’t going to be compensated for that damage. And if there’s a stronger Reynolds-type public interest defence, then any responsible organization won’t be paying out damages very often anyway.
While I agree with libel reform, and broadly agree with the first four points (though ‘reform’ of no-win, no-fee is a little vague; no-win, no-fee is important for access to justice, since many civil cases are too expensive to be funded by Legal Aid), it’s important not to eviscerate the law entirely. If the costs are significantly lowered, no-win no-fee is less available, and no damages will be payable, I can’t see what’s the stop an unscrupulous newspaper editor publishing things without caring if they’re true. No one is likely to spend lots of their own money to sue, knowing they won’t get any damages even if they win (and, in most cases, won’t even get 100% of their own costs paid by the other side) – the editor might as well just take the chance.