Libel Reform: How will it affect YOU?

(c) www.libelreform.org

Unless you’ve worked for a media organisation or you’ve trained as a lawyer, you’ve probably never given English libel law much thought, but the draconian and outdated restrictions on what can and can’t be published affect what you read in the news more than you might realise.

To see just how archaic libel law is, you need look no further than its most widely used definition: “That which tends to lower the plaintiff in the eyes of right-thinking members of society generally.” It’s also easy to see from this how the common misconception has arisen that libel laws are there simply to protect the reputations of the rich and famous – in reality, the consequences are far further reaching.

Having already touched on the problems inherent in English libel law (see David Gold’s article Libel: not such a laughing matter), The Vibe caught up with Michael Harris, Public Affairs Manager of The Libel Reform Campaign, to talk about just how devastating a libel case can be to the press and the public.

Firstly Michael, when was The Libel Reform Campaign formed and what prompted its beginning?

There were two triggers for the campaign. Last year, the UN wrote a report heavily criticising English Libel Law, saying that it had a “chilling effect” on the freedom of speech worldwide. Then there was the case of scientist and writer Simon Singh, who was accused of libelling the British Chiropractic Association [Singh appealed against the decision made by judges, sparking widespread concern about libel laws stifling open scientific debate].  Following this, English PEN and Index on Censorship issued a report entitled Free Speech is Not for Sale, which made ten recommendations to change English Libel Law. If you look at the Who is silenced? section on our website, you’ll find some interesting examples of real cases where English Libel Law has silenced academics, scientists and human rights activists – so you can see this is really serious stuff. We launched our report in October 2009, forming coalition between English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense about Science. We’ve since been backed by people like Dara O’Briain, Stephen Fry and Marcus Brigstocke, had over 17,500 people sign the petition and had over 10,000 letters written to MPs. Thanks to our campaign, Jack Straw announced in December that he was going to form a working party to look at our ten recommendations (excluding costs) and report in late March, hopefully with some concrete recommendations for how our libel laws should be changed.

Costs are obviously a huge issue in libel cases, why are they being dealt with as a separate issue?

Costs are being dealt with as a part of what’s called the Jackson Review, looking into all costs involved in civil actions. The review recommends a cap on lawyers’ fees in libel cases and will hopefully be accepted as cost can be absolutely crippling. For example, let’s say that The Vibe was sued for publishing something libellous. The person suing you would get a no-win, no-fee agreement with their lawyer, whose costs will be massive amounts of money – we’re talking hundreds of thousands of pounds. Let’s say your costs are also £200,000, so already that’s £400,000. If you lose, because of the no-win, no-fee arrangement, their £200,000 gets doubled to £400,000 to incorporate the lawyer’s ‘success fee’. On top of that there’s after the event insurance which is about 60% of costs, taking their fee up to about £600,000. That’s £800,000 already so as you can see it’s absolutely ruinous. There is no way on Earth that any youth magazine in the country could fight a single libel action.

There have been accusations that Jack Straw’s rapid response to your report is simply a press-pleasing move, what would you say to them?

(c) DoD photo by R. D. Ward

It’s true that Labour have had a long time to reform libel law, but Jack Straw is most definitely actively engaging with this issue. He’s gone out of his way to set up a working party which we hope will make serious recommendations for reform, and he will be judged on what the working party delivers. If he delivers a really strong set of reforms, he’ll go down as reforming Justice Secretary, but if claimant lawyers and judges bully the government into watering down proposals then he will be judged on that.

In addition to the support from Jack Straw and Labour, Nick Clegg has also spoken out in support of the campaign, particularly the issue of open scientific debate, telling the BBC: “Scientists must be allowed to question claims fearlessly, especially those that relate to medical care, environmental damage and public safety, if we are to protect ourselves against dubious research practices, phoney treatments and vested corporate interests…”

Indeed. At the moment, if a major corporation doesn’t want the public to know something they can bully magazine publishers, bloggers or any individual printing literature about their corporation into submission. There’s no strong public interest defence available, so if you face a libel action, you’re going to fold before you get to court because of the costs involved. Currently, libel laws allow those accused of funding terrorism or dumping toxic waste in Africa to silence their critics – it’s huge stuff. On the other end of the scale, we even had a case where Sheffield Wednesday football fans wrote criticisms of their club’s performance on a football supporter’s message board and were sued for libel and taken to court.

So, in the simplest of terms, how do libel laws directly affect consumers of media publications?

Essentially, libel threats decide what you can read and prevent you from reading about stuff that’s really in your interest – whether that be human rights abuses abroad, large international companies dumping waste or the funding of international terrorism. These are serious issues and in a democracy it’s incredibly important for people to have good access to information to make informed decisions.

Jack Straw and Nick Clegg have been vocal in their support, but have you had any support from the Conservative party?

We have, we’ve met Henry Bellingham (Shadow Minister for Justice). Part of the Conservative party is really interested in what we’re doing, but we have to keep putting pressure on all politicians because if they don’t think that the public are riled up and angry about this issue then they won’t do anything about it. We’ve proved with 10,000 letters going to MPs that there is a lot of public interest but it’s really important that we keep the pressure on now.

Finally, has the campaign had a strong negative response from claimant lawyers?

We expect claimant lawyers to pay for lobbyists; it would be unusual if they didn’t start lobbying the government very hard to stop potential changes. The media are of course being very supportive us, and it’s incredibly important to get people, especially young people, informed about the damaging effects of libel and involved in the campaign.

You can sign the petition for libel reform and read more about the campaign by going to www.libelreform.org