Danes ask EU to curb English libel law

17 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized

Depending how you look at it, the debate over English libel law became more absurd/serious this week, with Denmark’s justice minister asking the EU to intervene to prevent a proposterous libel claim against Danish newspapers going ahead in London.

EU Observer reports:

On Monday, the Danish government said that they had had enough. Danish justice minister Lars Barfoed demanded that Brussels step in to prevent lawyer Faisal Yamani from suing the Danish papers for damages in British courts on behalf of 95,000 descendents of the prophet who say they and their faith have been defamed.

The Danish papers in question had published cartoons of the prophet Mohamed, and refused to remove them from their websites.

Now, bad as English libel law is, we at least cannot sue for libelling the dead in this country. So how could this claim go ahead? Possibly if the claimants could show that they had suffered in their communities as a result of the publication. But that does seem pretty far-fetched.

Still, we must be embarrassed when a fellow EU member is so concerned about our libel laws. Things have to change.