Pat McQuaid, Hein Verbruggen and UCI launch defamation action against Paul Kimmage
A defamation claim involving material printed in English and French newspapers being brought by an Irishman against a fellow Irishman in a Swiss court. Clearly libel tourism is not solely an English problem.
It's interesting to see that the claim here has been brought action the individual author rather than the publisher, who you would think at the very least would be joined in the action.
It's interesting to see the UN wade into the law of libel in the Philippines.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=Changes-to-libel-law-mulled-over-Adonis-case&id=45827
Just goes to show how the global operation of libel law operates makes it extremely difficult to solve any issues that arise on an national basis.
It also goes to show how inextricably linked the laws of libel, and freedom of speech, are. One is almost counter to the other.
> One is almost counter to the other
ReplyDeleteThey are very much in conflict, to my mind — or, at the very least, demanding a careful balancing act between harm caused by the presence of speech (an article 8 issue) and harm caused by the censoring of speech (an article 10 issue).
If this is something which interests you, I'd highly recommend Article 19's, "Defining Defamation." It's 12 years old now, but still a very good entry point, in my opinion.
One of the objectives of the Defamation Bill (UK — post-consultation) is the prevention of libel tourism; it proposes an approach akin to that of the test for applicable law under regulation 593/2008 (Article 4, in the absence of choice, the court "most closely connected" to the case), asking whether the English courts are the most appropriate place to hear the case. s7(2) of the draft bill reads:
"A court does not have jurisdiction to hear and determine an action to which this section applies unless the court is satisfied that, of all the places in which the statement complained of has been published, England and Wales is clearly the most appropriate place in which to bring an action in respect of the statement."
Oops — it's a bill, not a "draft bill"!
ReplyDelete