It is one year today since the Defamation Act 2013 received the Royal Assent. Dr Matt Collins QC reflects on the English law of defamation and the significance of last year’s reforms.
No-one, starting from scratch, would devise defamation laws of the kind with which England and Wales, and the rest of the common law world, have been saddled. If they could be represented pictorially, they might resemble Frankenstein’s monster: countless complications and piecemeal reforms riveted to the rusting hulk of a centuries’ old cause of action. Continue reading
