Tag Archives: media law

An appreciation as long-serving legal manager leaves the Times

The Inforrm blog has a post up today looking at the work of Alastair Brett, the Times’ legal manager who has left the newspaper after 30 years.

It highlights the many campaigns Brett was behind to improve media law, such as disclosing offered payment of damages to a jury as well as establishing the “Fleet Street Lawyers’ Society”, which campaigned for press freedom before the Media Lawyers Association and various campaigns for libel law reform.

Alastair Brett has been central to many campaigns for the reform of libel law and procedure over more than two decades, writing in the Times, lobbying Government and Parliament and speaking frequently at legal conferences.

The article looks back along Brett’s career since joining the broadsheet in the late 1970s, from the major cases he fought to the causes he supported.

See the full post here…

High court ruling ‘not a complete loss’ for Jon Gaunt, says Liberty

Legal office for human rights group Liberty, who backed Jon Gaunt’s high court appeal against an Ofcom ruling that said he breached the broadcasting code, argues on Index on Censorship that the high court’s decision was not a complete loss for the “shock jock”.

Gaunt lost his appeal against the industry regulator, which censured him last year for calling local councillor Michael Stark a “health nazi” in an interview about children in care.

Corrina Ferguson from Liberty says the high court has laid down some important principles with regards to freedom of expression, but failed to follow its own rules:

It is difficult to understand why calling someone a Nazi once (and in a measured tone) could be deserving of the highest protection as political speech, but saying it again with more force is not protected at all. There are of course limits on free speech and it would be nonsensical to protect absolutely one person’s right to speak freely when it would have a grave impact on the rights of others – incitement to murder being an obvious example. But there is no right not to be offended.

It is very much hoped that this aspect of the judgment will be improved upon in the Court of Appeal. There is a real danger that allowing the regulator to intervene in this type of case will have chilling effect on robust political interviews. The Human Rights Act protects shock jocks as much as flagship political commentators and free speech is no more worthy with extra syllables.

Full post on Index on Censorship…

LIVE: Follow the Defamation Bill debate

The second reading of Lord Lester’s Defamation Bill takes place today with 22 peers debating it in the House of Lords.

The bill proposes significant changes to current libel legislation to address online publishing and could also offer greater protection for journalists reporting on parliamentary proceedings.

Journalism.co.uk is following the action – the reading starts at 10am – and we’ll be adding updates to this blog as they come in. You can also watch a livestream of the session on the UK Parliament website.

Follow the ‘more’ link below for previous entries.

2:15-2:30pm:

Lord Lester closes the reading, responding to individual comments.

He confirms that sites hosting third party comments, such as mumsnet, would be classified as innocent facilitators online and therefore not liable.

He adds that his bill was always aimed at protecting vulnerable parties.

“I am not interested in creating a bill for the media, I am interested in the individual, the critic, the newspaper.

“I am very glad others who are not lawyers took part in the debate, this is too important a subject to be left to just the legal profession.”

In response to the justice minister’s announcement that the government will draw up a draft law, he says he wondered if he was “alive at all or if I am in heaven, because I wasn’t expecting this response”.

“What he has said is extremely encouraging, indicates an open mindness to reform (…) and I’m sure that it’s better for the government to have a draft bill and then a joint committee looking at it across both houses.

“Then hoping we are in good health an actual bill that will start in this house.”

In a final vote the bill was agreed to be given a second reading.

Continue reading

Jack of Kent: Could Lester’s libel reform bill fail to launch?

The excellent Jack of Kent blog asks if the reforms to libel legislation in England and Wales put forward by Lord Lester in May will be hindered by a lack of parliamentary resource and time.

The bill, which would expand the fair comment defence and reform the law to better reflect online publications, will have its second reading in the House of Lords on 9 July. But, says Jack of Kent’s author David Allen Green:

The coalition government has not committed itself to any parliamentary time for libel reform in the current legislative session, a session which could last until November 2011; similarly the Ministry of Justice has not committed any departmental resources to putting a bill through parliament.

(…)

However, if the bill which does go forward from the debate on 9 July 2010 is not actually a good bill then it may be that such a ‘fail’ is not really a problem, and the libel reform campaign should look forward to the 2011-2012 session.

Full post at this link…

Related reading: The BBC College of Journalism’s Kevin Marsh on libel reform and whether the public’s voice is being heard in the debate.

New York Observer: The end of libel in the US?

According to the New York Observer, major US publishers have seen a steady decrease in libel suits against their titles – grinding to a halt entirely, according to lawyers for the New York Times Co. and Time Inc. A recent US study suggests that the number of libel trials in America in the 2000s was 50 per cent less than in the 1980s.

But why, and what does this mean for freedom of expression and publishers’ freedoms?

Media lawyers have a few theories to explain the rapid decline. A track record of limited success for plaintiffs discourages people from filing such cases-clearly a good for media organizations. In addition, the web has allowed for quick corrections, heading lawsuits off before they are even filed. Some individuals now even post their own responses on the Web, allowing them to vent steam before heading to court.

On the darker side, some media pros wonder whether the declining finances of media companies may be limiting the type of journalism that used to anger subjects and produce libel suits.

Full post at this link…

Guardian: Fair comment, the soul trio and a change for UK libel laws?

A legal case dating back to 2006 involving a musical trio, the Gilettes, their agent and an Italian restaurant in Leeds could have a significant impact on the use of fair comment as a defence in UK libel actions.

In the case, which will be brought in front of the Supreme Court, the Gilettes as claimants have had two applications for a defence of fair comment by their agent 1311 events struck out.

Explains the Guardian:

It will be the first study of the issue by the country’s highest legal authority since the law lords looked into it almost 20 years ago. Media organisations hope it will clear away a tangle of legal complexities around a defence which many claim has become increasingly difficult to mount in recent years: that an opinion is not libellous if it is based on fact, is in the public interest and is levelled without malice.

Full story at this link…

EPUK: Photographer wins copyright infringement case against Mirror Group Newspapers

Photography site EPUK publishes a report by law firm Swan Turton on a celebrity photographer’s copyright victory over Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

“In a judgment issued on October 16 which has potentially important ramifications for the photography industry, the High Court held that Daily Mirror publisher MGN Ltd had infringed copyright in photographs included in back copies of newspapers it was making available online to paid subscribers.”

Full post at this link…

Press Gazette: Tennis player suing over ‘world’s worst’ claim

On Press Gazette, PA Mediapoint reports that ‘lawyers for the tennis player suing the Daily Telegraph after it described him as being ‘ranked as the worst professional tennis player in the world’ have estimated that legal costs for the case could run to £500,000′.

“Robert Dee is suing the newspaper for defamation over an article which appeared on its front page on April 23, 2008, under the headline: ‘World’s worst tennis pro wins at last.'”

Full story at this link….

Trafigura update: Jack Straw to examine use of ‘super injunctions’

The justice secretary Jack Straw will examine the use of so-called ‘super injunctions’ following yesterday’s Trafigura-Guardian row, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown told MPs in Parliament today.

As reported by PA Mediapoint on Press Gazette, Gordon Brown called secret injunctions, which not only banned reporting of a story but also the existence of the ban itself, an ‘unfortunate’ area of UK law.

Since yesterday’s events which saw Carter-Ruck abandon an attempt to stop the Guardian publishing a tabled question for Parliament, Peter Bottomley, a Conservative MP, told the house he was reporting Carter-Ruck, the law firm acting on behalf of Trafigura, to the Law Society, on the grounds that no lawyers should be able to inhibit the reporting of Parliament.

Carter-Ruck has disputed the Guardian’s account of events published on Monday evening, in a statement available via its website [Full contents at this  PDF link].

“There has never been any question of Trafigura applying for an injunction that had as its purpose the prevention of publication of any matter arising in Parliament.  No such application has ever been made,” it stated.

“Nevertheless, as formulated (and as The Guardian apparently accepts) the Order would indeed have prevented The Guardian from reporting on the  Parliamentary Question which had been tabled for later this week,” the statement said.

The Guardian stated in an editorial today that they were told not to report the question, in line with an existing order. “When we became aware that the existence of this order had been mentioned in a parliamentary question we sought to vary the terms of the injunction. We were advised by Carter-Ruck that publication would place us in contempt of court,” stated the Guardian.

Private Eye was the first publication to publish Paul Farrelly’s question, the fortnightly magazine proclaimed in a story on its site.

“The MP’s [Paul Farrelly] intention to test this conspiracy of silence [secret ‘super-injunctions’] by asking questions about it using parliamentary privilege was revealed in Private Eye 1246, which went on sale on 29 September – a full two weeks before the Twittersphere caught up with the story.”

“There is an emerging culture of anonymity in which justice is not even seen to be done, and that is an unfortunate, rather dangerous trend,” said Ian Hislop, the magazine’s editor.

“I thought Private Eye’s job was to expose this. That is why I decided to publish the MP’s questions as the first item in the parliamentary column in yesterday’s [Tuesday] edition of Private Eye,” he said.

“The questions mentioned a recent court case in which we were defendants and concerned a matter on which I had given evidence to a parliamentary select committee. It seemed to me impossible that, in 2009, there could be any reason why we would not be allowed to publish privileged material available from the House of Commons. I saw the questions on the parliament website and I could not think of any judicial ruling which could overrule parliament, so I went ahead. That’s what we’re for.”

But the UK injunction on the report referenced in Paul Farrelly’s question remains.

“The issuing by the courts of so-called ‘super-injunctions’ is rightly controversial and  a matter of growing concern,” MP Paul Farrelly said in a statement yesterday.

“That is why, using parliamentary privilege, I tabled these questions to Jack Straw at the Ministry of Justice as a matter of urgency.”

“The practice offends the time-honoured ‘rule against prior restraint’, which safeguards freedom of expression in this country. It also fails to protect whistleblowers, acting in the public interest. The huge legal bills involved in fighting cases, too, have a chilling effect on legitimate investigative journalism.”

Paperhouse: Jon Snow is pro-privacy law – ‘tabloids are going out of business anyway’

Journalism.co.uk had this on its to-do list for this morning, but Sarah Ditum got there first and picked up Jon Snow’s comments from his reverse-role interview with Ann Widdecombe in the Guardian magazine on Saturday.

The Channel 4 News journalist – and Widdecombe reckons this is her scoop – would welcome a privacy act and says it wouldn’t affect the tabloids too much – ‘they’re going out of business anyway’.

AW Would you welcome a privacy act, Jon Snow?

JS I would welcome a privacy act, yes.

AW We have the scoop! Jon Snow says, ‘Bring in a privacy act.’

JS I believe that the tabloid media, in particular, have so intruded into the private lives of public people that they have brought it upon themselves that there should indeed be a privacy act.

AW I think that is absolutely right. I think…

JS Damn me, Ann Widdecombe, I didn’t think we’d have to sit here and agree.

AW And I consider that quite a coup, to have got Jon Snow to agree with me that we need to curtail the rights of the media. Thank you, Jon Snow…

JS I am totally opposed to, and would go to the gallows to prevent, censorship. But needless intrusion into the private lives of anybody…

AW Let me ask you this. Let’s imagine a politician – I don’t care whether it’s male or female, Jon, but let’s imagine a politician. You’ve got a politician who has never made any pronouncements about morality, who has a mistress. Is that the public’s business?

JS Not at all.

AW You’ve just put a lot of the tabloids out of business.

JS Well, they’re going out of business anyway, so that won’t mean much…

Paperhouse post at this link…