Justice Secretary Jack Straw has announced that the government believes the case for libel reform has been made, and that the Ministry of Justice will now move to make reforms to England’s defamation laws, potentially with a Libel Reform Bill.
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The divisive former Commons speaker Michael Martin returned to the spotlight yesterday in an effort to obstruct libel reform plans.
The Labour peer is attempting to use an arcane House of Lords tool to delay reforms that will limit the fees which lawyers can claim for successful “no-win, no-fee” defamation cases.
Justice secretary Jack Straw plans to reduce these success bonuses by 90 per cent, as he believes they produce a chilling effect that hinders freedom of expression and a free press.
However, Martin has tabled a “motion of regret” that will call for more consultation on the measures, which were due to come into force next month.
“If Lord Martin’s attempt succeeds but no time can be found for the debate before parliament is dissolved for the election, the reform package will be lost.”
Martin himself is no stranger to spending thousands of pounds on lawyers’ fees.
In 2007, he spent nearly £20,000 of taxpayers’ money on legal advice from the libel specialists Carter-Ruck to challenge a serious of negative stories about him in the press. He also infamously used £150,000 of public funds to block the publication of MPs’ expenses under the Freedom of Information Act.
Martin, who became the first parliamentary speaker to be forced out of office for 300 years, is being supported by the pressure group Lawyers for Media Standards, who have threatened a judicial review of Straw’s plans. And yet, the group has faced its own legal problems in recent weeks, according to the Guardian diary:
“Libel lawyers have written to Jack Straw complaining about his plans to reduce their so-called “success fees” in cases against the media. They approached him as “Lawyers for Media Standards”, which even he must have thought sounded quite impressive. But not so Companies House, which told them this title sounded far too official and regulatory to be allowed. They’ve now had to re-christen themselves “Lawyers for Media Rights”, though some say they should have done with it and call themselves “Lawyers for Huge Fees.”
Blogger and author Richard Wilson did a little digging on the group. Turns out the firm behind it represents the British Chriropractic Association in its action against Simon Singh. Funny that.
The Little Atoms Radio show, hosted by Neil Denny and Rebecca Watson was backstage at the Big Libel gig interviewing acts and campaigners including Simon Singh, Tim Minchin, Marcus Brigstocke, Tracey Brown, Richard Wiseman, Brian Cox, Ben Goldacre, Dara O’Briain, Ariane Sherine, Ed Byrne, Shappi Khorsandi and Robin Ince. The show contains some bad language and a whole load of libel. The song at the end of the show is Change the Libel Laws by Sly and Reggie, The Suburban Pirates.
You can listen here.
and watch Rebecca’s videos here.
Depending how you look at it, the debate over English libel law became more absurd/serious this week, with Denmark’s justice minister asking the EU to intervene to prevent a proposterous libel claim against Danish newspapers going ahead in London.
EU Observer reports:
On Monday, the Danish government said that they had had enough. Danish justice minister Lars Barfoed demanded that Brussels step in to prevent lawyer Faisal Yamani from suing the Danish papers for damages in British courts on behalf of 95,000 descendents of the prophet who say they and their faith have been defamed.
The Danish papers in question had published cartoons of the prophet Mohamed, and refused to remove them from their websites.
Now, bad as English libel law is, we at least cannot sue for libelling the dead in this country. So how could this claim go ahead? Possibly if the claimants could show that they had suffered in their communities as a result of the publication. But that does seem pretty far-fetched.
Still, we must be embarrassed when a fellow EU member is so concerned about our libel laws. Things have to change.