Month: June 2010 (Page 5 of 5)

This article was first published in Solicitors Journal on 18 May 2010 and is reproduced by kind permission.

The “Sunday Times” has condemned English defamation law as “draconian”. There is not a single newspaper which disagrees with this damning verdict. A number of NGOs, most notably English PEN and the Index on Censorship, have made similar pronouncements. Jonathan Heawood, director of English PEN, stated:

“Our libel laws allow people accused of funding terrorism or dumping toxic waste in Africa to silence their critics while ‘super injunctions’ stop the public from even knowing that such allegations exist.” Continue reading

Libel reform is overdue, but my case showed me limiting the percentage of costs lawyers receive would be a step backward

On 7 March 2010, I wrote a comment piece for the Independent on Sunday. Coinciding with the publication of my second book, Girl With a One Track Mind: Exposed, my article argued that sexism and stigma are still prevalent in how female sexuality is portrayed in the media, and that these old-fashioned stereotypes need to be challenged. Continue reading

The publication of Lord Lester’s Defamation Bill is intended to contribute to the “Libel Reform Debate”.   At Inforrm we take the view that this is a proper debate to be had, with important points to be made on both sides.  However, as we have said on a number of previous occasions (for example, here), the debate is not advanced by attacking those with opposing views as being naive or self interested.  Readers of this blog and of the press coverage of libel reform issues will know the positions only too well.   The “libel reformers” get the large majority of positive press coverage.  From that side, the most common caricature is of anyone who opposes the libel reform agenda as being a greedy, self-interested, claimant lawyer, intent on preserving massive libel fees.  On the other side, proponents of libel reform are sometimes described as naive tools of media self-interest who have failed to understand the careful balancing required in a viable libel law. Continue reading

I would refute Lord Lester’s recent assertion that English libel law is “notoriously costly, complicated and stifling of free speech”.

Watching the intense media frenzy on both sides of the Atlantic over so-called ‘libel tourism’ and reform of our libel laws, it is easy to forget the interests of the ordinary man in the street. It is not so much the international litigant who is likely to be affected by the draconian reforms being advocated in the press, but rather the rights of the individual UK citizen. Continue reading