Northern Ireland has never shown much enthusiasm for the Defamation Act 2013. When it first came on the agenda for debate there, the Finance Minister at the time declined to table it and declared that ‘Northern Ireland had no plans to review its defamation law’. However, it is only now that the Northern Ireland Assembly has been formally tasked with contemplating similar reform (see the Northern Ireland Defamation Bill) that the full scale of hostility towards the 2013 Act has come to the fore. Continue reading
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Tag: Serious Harm (Page 1 of 3)
On 6 October 2020, Drag Race UK participant Crystal publicly announced her intention to pursue a defamation action against actor and aspiring politician Laurence Fox after calling her a ‘paedophile’ on Twitter. Continue reading
Defamation Act 2013: A summary and overview six years on, Part 1, Sections 1 to 3 – Brett Wilson LLP
The Defamation Act 2013 (‘the Act’) came into force on 1 January 2014. At the time, we published an article considering the individual provisions of the Act, and speculating about how the law of defamation had been changed. In this follow-up article, we revisit the topic six years after the Act’s inception and look at what has happened in practice. This post deals with sections 1 to 3. The remainder of the Act will be considered in Part 2. Continue reading
Section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 provides that “A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.” As Warby J said in Doyle v Smith [2018] EWHC 2935 (QB) – “This is a beguilingly simple sentence. Inevitably, though, there was debate as to its meaning and effect before and after the Act came into force on 1 January 2014.” Continue reading
The Supreme Court today handed down its long awaited judgment in the case of Lachaux v Independent Print ([2019] UKSC 27). The appeal was dismissed on the facts but the Court overturned the Court of Appeal’s interpretation of the “serious harm” test in s.1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013, preferring the analysis of Warby J at first instance. Continue reading
On Tuesday and Wednesday 13 and 14 November 2018, the Supreme Court (Lords Kerr, Wilson, Sumption, Hodge and Briggs) will hear the appeal in Lachaux (Respondent) v Independent Print Limited and another (Appellants) UKSC 2017/0175, against the Court of Appeal decision of Davis LJ, with whom MacFarlane and Sharp LJJ concurred ([2017] EWCA Civ 1334). Continue reading
There is a sneaking suspicion among some media lawyers that our cases seem to get permission to appeal to the higher courts more regularly than one might expect. Maybe it’s the fast-changing nature of media and communications law in the digital era; maybe it’s the sparkle and pizzazz of celebrities and gossip which brightens the day of overworked appellate judges. Continue reading
On 21 March 2018 the Supreme Court (Lords Kerr and Reed and Lady Black) granted the defendants permission to appeal in the case of Lachaux v Independent Print. The Supreme Court will now consider the meaning and effect of the “serious harm” requirement in section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 for the first time. Continue reading
The long-awaited decision in Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd [2017] EWCA Civ 1334 has brought some badly-needed clarity and certainty to the law of libel, and it seems fair to say that reports of the death of the libel writ have been greatly exaggerated. Continue reading
Trumpeting the Defamation Act 2013 when it received Royal Assent, the Ministry of Justice publicised section 1(1) of the Act, which provides that “A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant“, established “a requirement for companies and individuals to show serious harm to establish a claim“. The Act, according to Lord McNally, represented “the end of a long and hard fought battle to reform the libel laws in England and Wales”. Continue reading
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