South African Courts deal censorship two solid blows – Dario Milo. July 2011 will go down in history as a month the media in the UK will never forget. The telephone hacking scandal claimed the scalps of the Metropolitan police commissioner, the assistant commissioner and various senior managers of News International; resulted in 11 arrests; and led to the closure of the famous News of the World tabloid. In contrast, July 2011 was a good month for the media in South Africa. As MPs continued their debate on the Protection of Information Bill – against a background of significant concessions in favour of openness from ANC representatives – the courts handed down two defamation judgments with important consequences for media freedom.
First, in SA Taxi v Media 24 Ltd ([2011] ZASCA 117) the Supreme Court of Appeal clarified the requirements that must be established before monetary losses can be claimed for defamatory publications. Judge Fritz Brand, for the majority of the court, upheld the right of a corporation to sue for reputational damage. Like this: The death of libel - is the Defamation Bill the beginning of the end for libel lawyers? Sense About Science | Plastic surgeon threatened for comment on ‘Boob Job’ cream. Follow the Reframing Libel Symposium live « Reframing Libel at City University London. The nerds are on the march « through the looking glass. A version of this post initially appeared on the Times’ Eureka blog The ballad of Simon Singh and his altercation with the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has been told many times before (for example). What I want to focus on here is the way the case inspired scientists, skeptics and bloggers to become involved in a movement to change the law.
Or, to put it another way, how libel reform ‘got its geek on’. Why was it that, sitting in the pub last April, when someone joked about the idea of a calendar of geeks, the first response was “yep, it could raise money for libel!” When did libel reform become the charity of choice for UK science? The BCA vs Singh case provided a clarion call for those who care about science to start worrying about libel. In many ways, the English libel laws go against a certain ideal of science: a need for free and open debate. Perhaps then, it is no surprise that scientists and science writers are so worried about the issue. After the Digital Economy Act – Cory Doctorow and Tom Watson MP. Jack of Kent: Could Lester’s libel reform bill fail to launch? | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog. 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… Similar posts:
Simon singh. Sally bercow.