[WikiEN-l] Libel law

Thu Dec 8 14:01:08 UTC 2005

On 08/12/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 8 Dec 2005, at 11:28, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >>
> > But it's wrong to point out that most people on this list don't live
> > in the UK, and therefore don't care about UK libel law?
>
> Actually (ignoring the rest of this thread), UK libel law is probably
> the most important in the world, mainly because it is so bad and you
> can choose your jurisdiction. Cases have been heard where Americans
> sue Americans about libels in US publications just because a few
> copies reached the UK.

Basically, in the eyes of the UK court system, what needs to happen is
that something is published in the UK, and that it can be defaming to
someone with standing in the UK.

"Published" has been construed to mean "made available to be read by a
third party" - the classic example is that sending a letter in an
envelope isn't publishing, since there's one recipient, but sending a
postcard is, since the postman can read it... the logical extension of
this is that something published on a server in Thailand by a guy in
Kenya can be grounds for someone in Cuba to sue, if someone in London
reads it even once, but this (thankfully) has not been ruled on by a
court as yet. At least, I don't *think* it has, but IIRC there's an
Australian court that did something similar.

Standing means that someone has to, basically, have a public status
which can be damaged by the defamation. This is tricky for J. Random
Crank, but - for example - the Norwegian politician who we were
discussing a week ago, he'd have ground to sue, since people have
presumably heard of him and have some respect for him.

> For many years the UK was the only place any
> major libel cases were heard (in the days of [[Peter Carter-Ruck]]),
> as you could get serious damages and it was very much slanted in
> your favour. It has changed a bit now. The main thing was you didnt
> have to prove damages, unlike in the US; you would get a notional
> (often large but once famously a penny) amount of damages for loss
> of reputation.

Of course, the problem is that people like Carter-Ruck came very
expensive, so the costs the defendant would have to pay were
*immense*. (This is not helped by the recent spate of "conditional fee
arrangements", where they add on another 50% charge for winning)

At this point, stop and meditate on the remarkable fact that Private
Eye still exists.

It's not something to horribly worry about, but it's not something
that can be assumed to be irrelevant either. At least, not yet...

(This is from memory, but I can drag out /Law for Journalists/ and
start summarising if people want)

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk