Government to review libel laws
Justice Minister Lord McNally has announced a plan to reform Britain’s tough laws of libel which are increasingly used to silence journalistic investigations and academic research.
A bill will be published early next year aimed at reforming our stringent laws. Campaigners have been warning for some time that our libel regulations are so tough that people around the world come to our law courts to silence critics.
Libel Tourism
It costs, for example, 140 times more to fight a case here than the European average.
Writers like Simon Singh, NGOs like Global Witness and medical professional like Dr Peter Wilmshurst have all been forced into expensive fights against rich companies and organisations, who have turned to our libel laws to block their work.
Breaking free
Announcing the review Lord McNally said: ‘Freedom of speech is the foundation of democracy. We need investigative journalism and scientific research to be able to flourish without the fear of unfounded, lengthy and costly defamation and libel cases being brought against them.
‘We are committed to reforming the law on defamation and want to focus on ensuring that a right and a fair balance is struck between freedom of expression and the protection of reputation.’
Cheered
The move has been welcomed by campaigners who have fought hard for the review.
In the first move to force change, Lord Lester of the PEN campaign, which has been pushing for a review of the defamation laws, introduced a private members bill earlier this year.
The Libel Reform Campaign has gathered 52,000 supporters in its fight against our draconian laws, it said it was delighted by the government’s ‘firm commitment to action’.
It added: ‘The bill seeks to reduce the chilling effect on freedom of expression and recourse to self-censorship that results from the vagueness and uncertainty of the present law. It also aims to encourage the free exchange of ideas and information, whilst providing an effective and proportionate remedy to anyone whose reputation is unfairly damaged.’
However, this is just a start. John Kampfner, CEO Index on Censorship warned: ‘We are delighted, but obviously we’ll need to see how bold the government will be – they must stop libel tourism, cut the obscene legal costs involved and give cast iron protections to free speech.’
