The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, is to chair the bench in what could be a landmark hearing for libel law in England. Lord Judge will preside over science writer Simon Singh’s appeal against an earlier ruling on meaning in the case he is defending against the British Chiropractic Association.
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Friend of Index Allen Green has a great piece on libel reform over at CiF:
“The effect of libel chill is that the public do not have access to information that would properly inform their decision-making on important topics, such as public health and safety, or about the conduct of powerful corporations.
Accordingly, it is not journalists and publishers that require protection from libel law, but the public. We need a general public interest defence that can be balanced against the private right to reputation. This could be done legally by making the public interest a ground for invoking qualified privilege, which means malice or bad faith would have to be alleged to commence a claim where the public interest is plausibly engaged. Coupled with a statutory right to correction or reply for the claimant, this reform would provide appropriate protection to both claimants and defendants.”
Simon Singh, the science writer who yesterday (Oct 14) won the right to appeal a preliminary judgment in a case brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association, has been accused of “maliciously” attacking the organisation.
In a statement published on its website, the BCA claimed its defamation suit was not an attack on free speech. The statement continued:
“The BCA supports and would never seek to stifle legitimate open scientific debate. However, this action is actually a simple libel claim based on the fact that the BCA was maliciously attacked by Dr. Singh in the Guardian newspaper. When given the opportunity to retract his words and apologise, Dr. Singh refused. This claim has been brought to restore the good reputation of the BCA and that of its members.”
