As over 50 international human rights NGOs have pointed out in a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron today, a damning report by the UN Human Rights Committee on English libel law spurred the calls for action to change the law. But with the government’s defamation bill merely codifying important sections of the law in statute, it remains to be seen whether they will deliver on the commitments made by the coalition parties at the last general election. The Libel Reform Campaign is calling for the House of Lords to make substantive amendments to the bill, in particular a new public interest defence and amendments to the “responsible journalism” defence; a new clause to strike out actions by corporations, an amendment forcing early strike out of trivial cases and improvements on regulations covering the internet. It’s time to get this right.

We need a public interest defence – now
Without a public interest defence in the Bill, this legislation will fall far short of initial expectations. Previous libel defendants Simon Singh and Dr Peter Wilmshurst have told the campaign that the provisions in this Bill would have done nothing to protect them in their cases. Clause 4 of the bill as it stands is merely the codification of a version of the existing Reynolds “responsible journalism” defence — it is not a public interest defence. In the Reynolds judgement (the 1999 House of Lords judgment in Reynolds vs Times Newspapers Ltd), Lord Nicholls suggested 10 criteria that could be used to measure whether a publication had been responsible. Although these criteria were meant to be illustrative they have come to be seen as a list of requirements to be satisfied. While a large newspaper group may be able to satisfy these criteria (albeit at huge expense), for bloggers, scientists or NGOs this is simply not practical. A better defence for large media organisations can be created by updating the bill to reflect the latest case law, in particular the summary by Lord Justice Brown in Flood vs Times. This should be included in the Bill either by deleting the entirety of the existing Clause 4 to keep the existing common law position which is stronger than the position in the Bill; or, more suitably (to create legal certainty) by amending the existing Clause 4. This amendment would at least give large media groups a reliable “responsible journalism” defence.

Last chance to demand Libel Reform. England’s libel laws are unjust, against the public interest and internationally criticised. Join 60,000 others calling for change. Sign here.

However, a “responsible journalism” defence will not protect the bloggers, scientists and NGOs who have driven the Libel Reform Campaign. Some MPs have responded to calls for a public interest defence, rather than just a responsible journalism defence. In the bill Committee, Rob Flello MP (the Labour party’s lead on this issue) proposed a strong public interest defence based around proposals from the Libel Reform Campaign for the government to use. A variant of this defence was adopted by Liberal Demoract Simon Hughes MP at report stage before the Bill went to the Lords. Such a public interest defence has found defenders inside the Conservative party including Rt Hon David Davis MP and Sir Peter Bottomley MP.

This public interest defence, to be inserted in the Bill as a new clause, would protect genuine public interest statements made in good faith. The clause would require that statements that meet a public interest threshold, which cannot be shown to be substantially true (such as claims around scientific research), are promptly clarified or corrected with adequate prominence. Those publications that do not drag their heels in publishing a prominent correction or clarification would be protected from having to defend a libel action. This gives bloggers, NGOs and scientists latitude to publish in a responsible manner on matters of a public interest.

The Libel Reform Campaign is looking to the second reading in the House of Lords for the government to adopt such a public interest defence.

Action on corporations
As pointed out by Index on Censorship, if defamation is about protecting the psychological integrity of individuals, why should corporations be able to sue?

The Libel Reform Campaign is lobbying parliamentarians to adopt a new clause on corporations, preventing them from using the law of defamation to sue individuals and requiring them instead use alternative laws such as malicious falsehood (which has a higher threshold of harm), the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 (BPRs), or a freestanding remedy of obtaining a declaration of falsity. The Labour party pursued this point during the Bill Committee, the Liberal Democrats made a manifesto commitment to do this at the last election, and many Conservative parliamentarians have called publicly for a bar on corporations suing individuals (or a higher threshold to initiate such an action). We expect the House of Lords to consider this during the second reading.

Striking out trivial cases
In recent years, the courts have allowed trivial or vexatious cases to proceed at huge expense to both the claimant the defendant, even where there has been little chance of the claimant winning their case. The Ministry of Justice believes that “existing procedures will suffice” under rule 3.4 of the civil procedure rules to strike out such cases at an early stage. But this has clearly not been borne out in legal practice. If the government’s intention is to allow for early strike out, then there must be an amendment telling judges to strike out claims that fail to surmount the “serious” (harm and extent of publication) hurdle.

President Barack Obama signs the SPEECH Act, which protects US citiizens from English libel law

Strengthening protections against “libel tourism”
In 2010, President Obama signed into law the US SPEECH Act protecting Americans from libel judgements made in the high court here. John Whittingdale MP, the chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee described this as a “national humiliation”. The current Bill does help prevent “libel tourism”, the phenomenon where international parties sue in the High Court in London rather than in a more appropriate domestic court.

But while the government’s Clause 9 is an improvement on the current position in law, we believe Subsection 13 (2) of Lord Lester’s Private Members’ Bill would be better, and should be added as an amendment to Clause 9 as it is clearer than the current “libel tourism” clause.

Lord Lester’s clause states:

No harmful event is to be regarded as having occurred in relation to the claimant unless the publication in the jurisdiction can reasonably be regarded as having caused substantial harm to the claimant’s reputation having regard to the extent of publication elsewhere

Internet regulations
This is a weak point of the bill. In recent years, internet intermediaries have received some protection from e-commerce regulations. Under these regulations, hosts do not have to remove material unless they are informed that it is “unlawful”. However, English law has not kept pace with these regulations. Section 1 of the 1996 Defamation Act (written in the internet’s infancy) involves a lower threshold for liability of intermediaries merely when a statement is “defamatory”. Unfortunately, Clause 5 of the current bill uses this out-dated threshold. The Libel Reform Campaign is also urging the government to publish the wider regulations on internet liability immediately. The government is currently intending to amend into the bill through a statutory instrument, giving Parliament a far more limited role in scrutinising these important regulations.

When the Bill is debated in the House of Lords, the Libel Reform Campaign hopes the government will signal its intention to bring forward amendments to the bill in light of the comments and tabled amendments from parliamentarians from all the main political parties. All three parties promised reform. Now is the time to deliver.

Mike Harris is Head of Advocacy at Index on Censorship

Last chance to demand Libel Reform. England’s libel laws are unjust, against the public interest and internationally criticised. Join 60,000 others calling for change. Sign here.

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Protestors campaign for human rights reform in Bahrain

Members of the international community are appealing for human rights infringements in Bahrain to be combatted as the 21st session of the UN Human Rights Council releases its final recommendations, due to be adopted today (19 September). Index on Censorship has joined over 100 NGOs, UNHRC member states and UN council members in releasing an international appeal to urge Bahrain to accept the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recommendations from Geneva. The statement called for the unconditional release of  human rights defenders, bloggers, and peaceful opposition activists campaigning to exercise their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

Meanwile, the UK parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee is to launch an inquiry into human rights abuses in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, according to an announcement made during a parliamentary briefing organised by Index on Censorship and The All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group. Labour party MP and committee member Ann Clwyd announced the plans during the 12 September briefing, where Maryam Alkhawaja, acting head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), condemned Britain’s attitude towards Bahrain’s human rights abuses. Alkhawaja called for diplomatic and economic sanctions from the UK, saying ”The Bahraini regime has reached a point where they believe they have acquired international immunity”.

In an article for Index on Censorship, Alkhawaja criticised the UK for allowing Bahraini official Nasser Bin Hamad Al Khalifa to attend the London 2012 Games. Calling for transparency and accountability, she said: “It is shameful that the UK and the US refused to sign onto a joint-statement issued by 27 countries this year, condemning human rights violations. Despite damning evidence that continues to mount both countries have been shamefully silent on this topic — and this must change.”

In November 2011, The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) was mandated by the King of Bahrain to investigate the human rights offences  after February 2011, where thousands of Bahrainis took to the street to protest human rights abuses and campaign for political reform. Among the recommendations, the BICI called for 300 people jailed for peaceful campaigning to have their cases transferred to civil court and for the authorities responsible to be held accountable.

However, since the investigation was launched, allegations of arrest for peaceful protest and torture as a means of extracting information have continued. The British government’s funding of munition implies political passivity towards Bahrain and indirectly opposes insurgency; estimates by the BCHR total the number of political prisoners to 3,000 as of today. Prominent human rights activists such as Nabeel Rajab — who was sentenced on 16 August 2012 to three years’ imprisonment for organising peaceful gatherings  — are still jailed in Bahrain.

Daisy Williams is an Editorial Intern at Index on Censorship

Read more on this story: 

Bahraini Human rights defender Maryam Alkhawaja denounces Britain’s indifference

Sara Yasin discusses why it’s time to stop doing business with Bahrain

BAHRAIN: BLOOD ON THE TRACK

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With the Rugby World Cup rumbling on, the minister put out an SOS for burly forwards. The ball, he said, was just yards from the line. With one more heave, victory would be achieved. The speaker was Tom McNally, the justice minister, as he addressed a conference on libel earlier this month.

McNally should know. He has been leading the government’s bid to change English defamation law which for decades has chilled the free expression of scientists, bloggers, journalists, authors and charities the world over.

On Wednesday that impetus has received one more push: a joint committee of the Lords and Commons has reported back on the draft defamation bill, suggesting a number of important improvements. Though legislation continues to fall short in key areas, step by step parliament is removing the UK’s pariah status. So bad was English law that the US Congress introduced special measures to protect Americans from courts in London, seen as dismissive of the fundamental right to freedom of expression. When the culture select committee published a report on libel, privacy and press standards in March 2010, it described the American move as a “national humiliation”.

Once most MPs didn’t see what the fuss was about. In November 2009, when Index on Censorship and English PEN published their joint report on reforming libel, some suggested there wasn’t much of a problem. But within four months we had persuaded the three main parties to pledge reform in their manifestos. Straight after the election Lord Lester introduced a private member’s bill, adapted into government legislation by Lord McNally.

That bill, welcome as it was, proved deficient in a number of important areas. It failed to raise the bar high enough to prevent large corporations from threatening libel suits in order to stop legitimate investigation – a tactic many newspapers have suffered from.

It needed to do more to protect internet service providers from catch-all demands to take down an “offending” item, even though they may have no role in its posting and be in no position to determine whether or not the demands are simply bullying.

And it should have gone much further in setting out the public interest defence, which is the bedrock of good investigative journalism.

In its six-month review of the bill, the committee of 12 peers and MPs has dissected each area of McNally’s first stab at defamation law. They describe the government’s draft bill as unduly “modest” in ambition, and say that in several aspects it “should provide greater protection to freedom of expression. This is a key foundation of any free society.” They suggest a higher test of “substantial harm” for claimants and a greater defence of responsible journalism and fair comment.

In a boost to academic freedom, they also recommend extending qualified privilege – greater defence – to scientific and other journals. And they follow the recent proposals of Index on Censorship for mediation to bring down the exorbitant and often ruinous costs for individuals defending themselves in libel cases brought by wealthy litigants.

It’s not all good news. Despite the committee’s move towards a stronger public interest defence that will take into account the resources of the publisher (a key issue for bloggers), we still believe there is further to go to ensure that the defence is robust and accessible. And some of the provisions for web forums and social media, particularly concerning anonymous comments, may be problematic.

McNally and his boss, justice secretary Ken Clarke (who seems curiously unengaged in this crucial issue), are expected to respond quickly to the report. We hope they will take the criticisms on board and incorporate the proposals that would beef up the bill. Our libel reform campaign will continue to lobby for change.

The danger to reform is likely to come from another direction. Unwittingly, the Leveson phone-hacking inquiry could do more harm than any of the avaricious law firms desperate to maintain the profits they make from defending oligarchs and sheikhs.

Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry into just about every aspect of press practice could give ministers the impression that they might as well wait for his conclusions next autumn before doing anything about libel. This would be a terrible mistake – and one the judge himself is keen to avoid. He has made clear, time and again, that he is not looking at the libel law.

With consensus achieved among the parties, and among most (if not all) mainstream legal, media and academic figures, there is now only potential inertia and misunderstanding in the way of a short, clear bill being published straight after next May’s Queen’s speech. Thanks to the committee’s strong scrutinising work, the bill should receive speedy passage through both chambers and make it on to the statute book by next autumn.

McNally needs the impetus of Nick Clegg and David Cameron to push him and the ball over the line. A sorry chapter in English legal history will then be over. A government in desperate search of good news and solid achievements is staring one in the face.

This article was first published in the Guardian

John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship

SIGN THE PETITION FOR LIBEL REFORM

AN INDEX ON CENSORSHIP, ENGLISH PEN AND SENSE ABOUT SCIENCE CAMPAIGN

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So it was in the Grand Committee Room on Monday when the politics of Europe’s last dictator were presented in a remarkable performance by Jude Law. The actor is a Hollywood star and number one British heart-throb in the celebrity pages of our tabloid press as well as Hello, Heat and OK. But he has a second passion — for human rights — and that was on display on behalf of the oppressed people of Belarus.

Together with fellow actor and Old Vic artistic director, Kevin Spacey, as well as the playwright, Tom Stoppard, whose commitment to pro-democracy politics goes back to Charter 77, Jude Law came to the Commons to make his plea for freedom in Belarus. British ministers are fulminating about the odious Colonel Gaddafi as they call him every name under the Libyan sun as they work up public opinion to support the military intervention against the dictator of Tripoli. But there is another dictator a bit closer to home and that is the Macbeth of Minsk, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has held sway over his people since 1994. Lukashenko has to allow periodic elections under the Belarus constitution but he makes sure they are rigged. The OSCE has declared invalid every Belarus election since 1996.

There was one late last year. When 50,000 people demonstrated for democracy in Minsk on 19 December 2010 they were attacked by police. Several presidential candidates are still being held in KGB prisons. Twenty journalists are also detained.

There are so many places around the world where the political opponents of regimes are locked up. So how does one draw attention to Belarus? Index of Censorship, under the energetic leadership of the former political editor and Moscow correspondent, John Kampfner, has been working with Belarus Free Theatre and supported the link-up with Jude Law, Kevin Spacey and Sir Tom Stoppard (why a humble K and not a peerage for our greatest living playwright, by the way?) to present a production by the Belarus actors at the Commons.

The actors from Belarus have left their country as the alternative was to risk rotting in prison. They are stateless, homeless, and like a wandering set of players from Shakespeare’s time go from country to country seeking to play their parts and highlight oppression back home. (Memo to Teresa May: Allow them visas to stay here. Don’t be mean.)

Jude Law performed an amazing double-act satire with Nikolai Khalezin — Law speaking English and Khalezin his native Belarussian. The play, Generation Jeans, explains the market for blue jeans and rock music in Berlarus where trade in Western commodities, is as difficult as trade in democratic politics. Despite the two languages, the audience from different parts of the Commons were held spell-bound and grabbed the souvenirs of cut-up denim Jude and Nikolai handed out at the end.

Sadly, some of the Belarus Free Theatre ensemble could not make it in time for the performance as Commons security held them in an eternal queue. It’s not the police’s fault — they are only obeying orders after all — but surely someone can sort out the impossibility of getting visitors into the Commons? John Whittingdale, Pamela Nash and I sponsored the event and it was a dramatic (yes, that is the right word) evening that told us what we need to know about Europe’s last dictatorship.

What to do now? Everything has been tried. Travel bans. Economic sanctions. Withdrawing ambassadors. Being nice to Lukashenko. Being nasty to Lukashenko. He has to his east Russia under the neo-authoritarian Putin. The last thing Russia’s strongman wants is a fully democratic, Russian-speaking nation on his border. Minsk and Moscow quarrel but sadly as with Mugabe, Burmese generals, octogenarian Castro hermanos, there are some regimes that just go on and on. We can simply bear witness and show solidarity and Jude Law and the Belarus Free Theatre did that wonderfully in the Commons. But Lukashenko should ponder the fate of his fellow ex-Soviet era leader, Leonid Kuchma, who was booted out of power in Kiev during Ukraine’s Orange revolution in 2005. In 2000, the body of the Ukrainian journalist, Georgiy Gonadze was found a few hundred metres from his head. The political murder was meant to intimidate other investigative reporters highlighting the corruption of the Kuchma regime. Last month Leonid Kuchma went on trial, protesting his innocence, in connection with the Gonadze murder. So justice can catch up and one day the Berlarus Free Theatre will invite Jude Law to perform in Minsk.

Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and was a PPS and Minister at the FCO 1997-2005.

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The right to freedom of expression does not entitle indefinite occupation of public land.  Brett Lock of Harry’s Place

The right to freedom of expression is precisely that: a right to receive and impart ideas. It does not enable a man to live in a tent on public land for nearly a decade, if he has no independent right to do so.

It is legal to advertise goods and services but illegal to fly-poster the side of a public building with advertising material.  There is no law against singing sea shanties, but you may be ejected from a cinema if you decide to do so in the middle of a film. You cannot play a country and western record at top volume at 2am. All these examples restrict what can be said, expressed or broadcast, but none are forms of censorship. They are merely controls on the time and place of expression.

This is a crucial distinction. Censorship seeks to silence and suppress ideas. Telling a person to shut up at this particular moment, in this particular place, is not censorship. Doing so does not seek to suppress their ideas. It protects the rights of others to peace and quiet. All reasonable people understand this.

So, what of Brian Haw, the “protester” who has lived in a tent on Parliament Square for almost a decade, wafting from one issue to another and drawing all manner of fringe causes to his orbit? Recently I walked past and there was a wall of placards claiming the Freemasons had murdered a range of people, including the late wife of Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who died in a car accident. Haw also believes that 9/11 was an “inside job”.

That said, we should not be distracted by the fact that many of the views presented for our consumption by the Haw camp are quite mad. They are ideas and they are being expressed. That is sufficient for their protection. That is why temporary and short-lived demonstrations, in the symbolically important environment of Parliament Square, should most certainly be permitted.

However, I would not be allowed to install a booth providing information about the products and services of my business in Parliament Square or on any other public land. I would not be allowed to set up a small stage and host an alternative Glastonbury. So why should Haw and his colourful troupe be any different? Disseminating his ideas he is free to do. He may push leaflets through our doors. He may participate in radio phone-ins. He can set up a website. He can even hold a daily protest. But what he can’t do is live in a tent on public ground indefinitely merely because he’s scrawled a political slogan on a bit of old cardboard.

Haw’s protest is repetitive to the point where it is just white noise. He can’t shut up because he’s afraid not for his ideas (which are expressed daily by millions) but for himself: that he might be an irrelevance without his tent and his bit of cardboard.

Quite frankly, I am alarmed that Index on Censorship has taken such an
unsophisticated view of this case, and indeed, is enabling the self-destructive behaviour of a man who strikes me as quite possibly mentally ill. I feel so strongly about it, that I’ve written an article on the subject. But I most emphatically do not have the right to express my opposition by setting up a permanent camp outside Index on Censorship Chair Jonathan Dimbleby’s house.

Or do I?

Brett Lock was the editor of Gay Humanist Quarterly. He is also a regular contributor to the political blog Harry’s Place and a campaigner with the gay human rights group, OutRage!.

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As Boris Johnson wins his fight to “democracy village”, Bibi van der Zee asks if the courts intend to end the great British tradition of camping in protest

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As Boris Johnson wins his fight to “democracy village”, Bibi van der Zee asks if the courts intend to end the great British tradition of camping in protest

There is an oddity to the traffic arrangements around Parliament Square, but it will take the casual visitor several minutes to spot it. In fact even the keenest of observers may not spot it immediately, until he, or she, wants to cross the busy road to the green square in the middle.

There are no pedestrian crossings. It’s hard to work out where they’ve gone, but they’re just not there now. Instead commuters and tourists who want to break out of the bustle and shove off the pavements and make their way to the green island in the centre have to stride out bravely into the traffic. It’s like The Beach or something.

And this peculiarity makes it a little hard to stomach the fury of some commentators that the protesters in Parliament Square are “removing the liberty of people to walk across a public square”. The fact that the authorities, for reasons of their own, did that years ago, makes the Parliament Square democracy village just the very latest incarnation of the great British tradition of ideological squatters.

Setting up protest camps is something we Brits have done with huge enthusiasm and regularity since time immemorial. Where other nations feel the yoke of the oppressor upon their neck and think “grr, time for revolution”, we think, “ooh, where did we put those tent pegs?”

During the English civil war, the Diggers, led by Gerard Winstanley, tried to take over and cultivate communal land: Winstanley declared that if “the waste land of England were manured by her children, it would become in a few ideas the richest, the strongest and [most] flourishing land in the world”.

And ever since then, at the slightest sign of trouble we just move in. Housing shortage? Take over anything you can find. Don’t like nuclear weapons? Put up tents around the military bases. Opposed to apartheid? Take up residence outside the South African embassy. Want to stop a road being built? Unroll your ground mat right where the inside lane would have been.

Our legal system, which often treasures anomalous rights you’d imagine (if you’d grown up under New Labour) that it would just have hacked to the ground, has carefully preserved the right to do this. In a country where property is God, it is still possible to squat without having your deed-signing hand chopped off. And if you are setting up camp on private land, you can only be “directed to leave” if you’re in a wheeled vehicle or have “caused damage to the land…or used threatening, abusive or insulting language to the landowner” and all who surround him. On public land similar conditions hold, although increasingly military bases and the like can often convince friendly secretaries of states to pass bylaws that sneakily boot the camps.

More recently, our own police were forced to confirm in public (through the means of their self-flagellating Policing Protest report) that we do indeed have a right to peaceful protest which does not necessarily have to be “lawful”.

So what does all that mean for the protest camp in the heart of Parliament Square? Some may think it’s a mess and they’re right, it is a bit of a mess frankly – surely they could neaten it all up a little bit and pitch those tents in straighter lines?

But nevertheless, when I walked through the camp a couple of weeks ago I felt a swell of pride that tourists coming to Britain, visiting our Houses of Parliament and our grand cathedral, would be reminded that here, this is the way we do things. What, I thought, would Chinese, Cubans and Colombians make of it? In those countries protesters are thrown into prison or killed, not allowed to set up a permanent picket.

Despite all the best efforts of the government to make Parliament Square a no-protest zone, we’ve politely declined that option. Thank you but no. We’d rather have the freedom to express our mad, anarchic British feelings in public, under canvas, with a primus stove, a cup of tea and a handy parliament to pass legislation on whether Steve in tent four should be allowed to play his wind-up radio until 9pm or 10. Now, can we have the crossings back so that we can pop over to congratulate them without being run over?

Bibi van der Zee is a journalist and author. She recently published Rebel, Rebel: The Protestor’s Handbook

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What does it say about the working of government that this simple but urgently needed reform was allowed to become a casualty of petty politics in the pre-election wash-up?

Opponents to a change that would have tempered a dangerous disincentive to scientific debate and proper journalistic inquiry on behalf of the public seem to have been seduced by the arguments of lawyers who most benefit from success fees — hardly an independent voice.

They claimed consultation had been too short when the issue had been dissected and debated for at least three years.

They said there was a danger that less well off people could be denied representation because lawyers needed high success fees in no-win-no-fee actions. The fact is that claimant lawyers select the cases with the greatest chance of success.

They suggested more evidence of wins and losses was needed. Sadly claimant lawyers were distinctly shy on the subject but only recently one let slip that as many as 300 victories had been set against as few as 15 failures. Such figures would require far less than ten per cent success fees to compensate for the losses.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw was persuaded that it was not in the public interest to discourage journalistic investigation and comment across the media from the smallest local newspaper to the biggest nationals and the BBC. That has been the result of fees being doubled and what one distinguished law professor described as 130 per cent profiteering.

A simple and relatively easy solution was found in the form of a change in regulations that are normally nodded through parliament.

It was an interim measure that could have been equally easily reversed if access to justice was threatened or if well-heeled lawyers found themselves in the poor house.

It is a disgrace and another parliamentary and political scandal that a tiny number of misinformed politicians should have been allowed to thwart a carefully thought through reform that would have helped reinvigorate reporting and debate that is a vital part of the democratic system that they are supposed to uphold.

Bob Satchwell is Executive Director of the Society of Editors that has members in national, regional and local newspapers, magazines, broadcasting and digital media, journalism education and media law

The post Libel reform washed out? appeared first on Index on Censorship.

But how do experts see the proposals?

Emily Bell is director of digital content for Guardian News and Media

I’ve mixed feelings about the report, on one level its fantastic, it is a vindication of the Guardian’s investigation into the phone hacking, and it also makes some sensible suggestions on libel. As a web editor I have concerns because the report is rooted in old media, in newspapers. The committee’s web comments proposals underestimate how onerous and expensive a moderation operation is to run. The proposals could damage an already fragile economic model. How would the committee define a publication? Would bloggers be forced to moderate comments on their site, will this affect networks like Facebook.

The real problem is that the sands seem to constantly shift beneath us as individual members of the judiciary set legal precedent. At least the committee’s proposal for a one-year time limit would remove the dangers of the newspapers archives counting as continuous publication.

Alan Rusbridger is Editor of the Guardian

I would have been happier if the committee had gone the Australian route and barred larger corporations for suing for libel except where deliberate malice could be shown. But, failing that, I think it would certainly be an improvement for the burden of proof to be reversed, and for a capping of costs.

Camilla Wright is founder and Editor of Popbitch

The report seems to be making all the right noises to fall into step with current fashion without any making any real attempt to guide how any effective change might happen. The call to overhaul libel laws, particularly in relation to costs and libel tourism obviously reached a tipping point some time ago, so the House of Commons is really just playing catch up, although the suggestion that journalists’ burden of proof might not be so onerous in cases of corporate defamation is very interesting.

In respect to privacy issues – such a hugely important area of law since the rich and famous started using Article 8 to keep media noses out of any parts of their lives they didn’t want – there’s nothing substantive coming out of this report except the point very firmly made that parliament wants nothing to do with legislating to sort out the current freedom of expression vs right to privacy bunfight.

Where the report makes some very hardline recommendations is on forcing newspapers to take responsibility for user-generated material – most specifically comments. It smashes apart the convention that this responsibility only really kicks in when the newspaper has been made aware of a complaint and instead puts the onus on the newspaper to make sure that comments contain nothing “offensive”. Well, one person’s offensive is another person’s joke or discussion point, so for me this would sound the death knell for online comments. While your first thought might be “Who would miss them?”, by taking away such a simple mechanism for readers to debate and interact with the newspapers we might weaken the attempt to improve levels of trust between the public and media.

Lord Lester QC is a human rights lawyer and Liberal Democrat peer

I welcome the report in seeking to strike a fair balance between free speech reputation and personal privacy. I will introduce a private members bill to give effect to some of the committee’s recommendations.


Charmian Gooch is a founder and director of Global Witness

The tone and direction of this report is broadly welcome, and some of the specific recommendations are good. However it will be a challenge to make sure that the Government can follow up on the many recommended consultations. We face threats on a regular basis and so had hoped for more concrete recommendations to protect campaigning organisations working on public interest issues. The decision not to recommend mandatory pre-notification is welcome, however we are concerned that the ‘public interest’ test is not clearly defined and may enable corrupt dictators to obstruct our exposés into their dirty dealings. The sort of responsible, fact-based campaigning we do is under threat, and this report does not do enough to redress that. Without further concrete reform, some of the world’s most egregious individuals will still be able to exploit the justice system to launder their reputations and defend their continuing corrupt activity.

Andrew Scott is a senior lecturer in law at the London School of Economics

On privacy and libel, the report is quite the curate’s egg. On the down-side, the committee has bought a pup on the ‘libel tourism’ issue. The only context in which libel tourism is a concern is where it overlaps with the chilling effect wrought by abusive actions brought to silence relatively weak defendants. For such defendants, the key problem is a combination of sheer cost and personal hassle. It is surprising that the committee should seek to validate the lobbying success of American mass-media organisations which, under the guise of concern for impecunious defendants, have moved to insulate themselves at home from liability for damage to individual reputations caused by publications made abroad. The better route is to focus attention on libel costs and procedures in the hope of reducing the burdens faced by all parties, to contemplate changes to rules on internet archives and corporate standing, and to introduce the right for defendants to counter-sue where libel is misused to silence them. In many of these respects, the committee’s reflections are eminently sensible.

On the up-side, the report offers a robust defence of media freedom against the seductive logic that underpins the privacy-based insistence on prior-notification. While Max Mosley can be forgiven for not seeing beyond the end of his own nose, the rest of us must properly take into account the deleterious impact that his siren calls could have on public knowledge of important matters. Nonetheless, the committee is right to call for responsibility at the pre-publication stage, and heavy culpability for error if and when things go inexcusably wrong.

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