Libel in English Law

The common law crimes of criminal defamation and seditious defamation were abolished for British citizens by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, and the crime of blasphemous defamation was abolished as a crime by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. [23] [24] The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that would render British defamation judgments inapplicable in the United States. Mr Singh is unlikely to be the last victim of Britain`s defamation laws. However, the settlement of scientific and political disputes through litigation contradicts the very principles that made Western progress possible. “The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set limits to infinite error,” wrote Bertolt Brecht in The Life of Galileo. It is time for British politicians to restrict the law so that wisdom reigns in the country, not error. [76] On April 19, 2008, British author and journalist Simon Singh wrote an article in The Guardian that led to a defamation lawsuit by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA). [71] [72] The action was dropped by the BCA on April 15, 2010. [73] Under the new Act, defamation privileges have been expanded to include the following: In the United Kingdom, the burden of proof in a defamation case is on the defendant. In other words, it is not for the plaintiff to prove that the statement in question is false – it is for the defendant to prove that the statement is true. It is often difficult to prove the veracity of a statement in one way or another – and if neither party presents convincing evidence, the party loses with the burden of proof.

This aspect of UK libel law probably provokes more self-censorship than any other. The crime of scandalum magnatum (insulting the peers of the empire by slander or slander)[12] was established by the Statute of Westminster 1275, c. 34,[13] but the first case of criminal defamation is generally regarded as the case of De Libelli`s famose,[14] heard in the Star Chamber during the reign of James I by Edward Coke, In his verdict on the case, he said that a person`s “good reputation… should be more precious to him than his life.” [15] [16] The case revolved around a “notorious” slander involving John Whitgift, the late Archbishop of Canterbury. [11] [17] It has been held that defamation against an individual may be considered a crime if it may provoke revenge that would threaten to disturb the peace, that defamation against the monarch or the government may be unlawful, even if true, because “it concerns not only the breach of the peace, but also the government scandal.” and that defamation of a public figure is a more serious offence than defamation of an individual. [17] [18] This set a common law precedent where judges ruled on all factors except publication; Therefore, a jury`s guilty verdict in a defamation trial only decided that the material had been published, while the judge decided whether the defamation had been committed. [19] Criminal laws punishing defamatory speech date back to the thirteenth century in England. The criminal law on defamation, as applied in America, goes directly back to the English Star Chamber, which became a forum for the prosecution of criticism of the monarch during the time of King Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547). If a plaintiff is found guilty of bringing a defamation action when this statement is in fact accurate, the defendant may file a counterclaim for fraud, recovery of unjustified settlement funds, and other factors.

One example is the Sunday Times and cyclist Lance Armstrong. Armstrong received £300,000 from the newspaper following a libel lawsuit in 2004. Following USADA`s 2012 report on Armstrong`s doping, the Sunday Times said it could try to recover the lost money and claim Armstrong for fraud. [38] Armstrong finally accepted the newspaper in 2013 for an undisclosed sum. [39] After the death of BBC television personality Jimmy Savile, it emerged that hundreds of people accused him of abusing her as a child. The Sunday Mirror did not publish an article about two of his alleged victims in 1994 because his lawyers were concerned about the cost of a defamation suit. [92] [93] A British newspaper editor, Brian Hitchen, claimed that he had heard about the abuse of Savile by the captain of a ship decades earlier, but noted that libel laws had prevented people from talking about Savile`s abuses. [94] However, courts in some states have upheld criminal defamation laws, often including a requirement of actual malice in the law. In Phelps v. Hamilton (1995), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth District, did this to enforce Kansas` criminal law on defamation.

The state subsequently explicitly amended its law to require actual malice. Extended privilege against libel`s liability: The UK has a long tradition of “privilege” in defamation law. Under the doctrine of privilege, a person protected by privilege cannot be prosecuted for communicating content that would otherwise be considered defamatory. The most recent court decision regarding criminal defamation was Ashton v. Kentucky (1966), which concluded that Kentucky`s unwritten crime of common law libel was too vague and uncertain to be prosecuted. This judgment effectively eliminated common law criminal libel. Keith-Smith v. Williams in 2006 confirmed that Internet discussions were public enough to allow defamation. [25] In Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v.

Greenmoss Builders, Inc. (1985), the Supreme Court held that in defamation suits involving individuals and in purely private interest cases, alleged damages and punitive damages may be awarded on lesser grounds of factual malice. The Court concluded that the First Amendment had not been violated by allowing the recovery of alleged damages and punitive damages without malice, as long as the defamatory statements did not address matters of public interest. These judgments and the impact of the rewording prompted several jurisdictions to repeal their criminal defamation provisions. In other jurisdictions, courts have either repealed these provisions entirely or as they applied to statements concerning public officials and matters of public interest. Although defamation or defamation is now primarily a civil suit, it was once primarily a crime pursued by the government and punishable by imprisonment or a fine. The result of these decisions is that criminal defamation can only survive if: SLAPP (Strategic Litigation vs. Public Participation) is not designed with the goal of victory, but intimidates and harasses the defendant by costing them time and money, hoping to stop investigating or discussing a matter of public interest. SLAPP lawsuits are usually brought by special interests that will benefit from the closure of the debate.

In the UK, they often target journalists, using defamation laws as a pretext. Some have pointed out that damages for defamation are high compared to amounts awarded for personal injury. In a consultation on personal injury, the Law Commission commented: All defamation cases are heard by judges, not juries, unless the competent court orders a jury trial. Ehrenfeld`s case was an example of “defamation tourism,” where someone brings a defamation action in a country where they have the best chance of winning. Often that country is Great Britain. In an action for defamation or defamation of statements containing two or more different charges against the plaintiff, the justification objection fails not only because the truth of each charge is not proven if the words that do not prove to be true do not materially damage the plaintiff`s reputation as to the veracity of the other accusations. [49] In other words, to succeed in his defence of justification, the respondent does not have to prove that each accusation is true, just enough accusations, so that the other charges do not in themselves constitute substantial damage to the plaintiff`s reputation.