Straw’s libel reforms are a start, at least.

December 3, 2009 by shanecroucher Leave a Comment

Jack Straw’s new proposals for the reform of libel law are an encouraging start, but they are by no means conclusive.

There is a large focus on costs of defence. Whilst the astronomical costs of defending libel cases are of great importance, what about the burden of proof being with the defendant? That’s most certainly of equal importance.

The suggestions made by libelreform.org should be taken seriously into consideration by Straw.

However, I believe we also need to ensure that when libel is committed, not only are suitable damages paid (by suitable I mean genuinely reflective of financial loss and damage to reputation, not a gratuitous and vast sum), but a significant retraction is made in the publication which is guilty of libel. Having one small paragraph tucked away in a newspaper does not undo the damage done by a full-page article. There needs to be guidelines on corrections and their prominence within a newspaper or on a webpage. For example, libellous articles are removed from websites. There should be rules in place to ensure that a correction is permanently left in its place.

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Settlement maybe, but Carole Malone still gets away with it.

August 10, 2009 by shanecroucher 2 Comments

Cherie Blair settled a libel dispute with the News of the World today when she was handed a cash payout, as well as a public apology in the NoW paper. The libel in question was committed in a column written by Carole Malone. She had made several assertions in her article:

Malone’s column made a number of false claims, including that Blair had arrived with hordes of secuity men, only made the appearance at the event for publicity purposes and gave “inhuman” responses about the Human Rights Act when questioned in a panel discussion.

Malone’s style of column is questionable. See here and here for two of her more dubious articles being torn apart. Fair call, the News of the World apologised, made a retraction and payed damages (although, it should have never reached this far in the first place. It shouldn’t have been published). However, there still seems to be an injustice here. Where’s Malone’s direct apology? Where’s her retraction? After all, the NoW may have published it, but Malone was the one making entirely false claims. Effectively, unless the NoW enforced internal sanctions on Malone, or made her pay for part of the damages, she’s got away scott free. Why should columnists be allowed to hide behind walls of their employer’s cash?

As long as they have a powerful publication behind them, they’re free to libel whoever they want.

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