Defamation Bill

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

Of course it does. I am sorry.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

My Lords, I come very late to this legislation, having devoted myself over recent years merely to deciding defamatory cases. I am enormously glad that the House is proposing to simplify and clarify the law and, in that respect, to raise the bar. However, noble Lords should recognise—as assuredly the courts will recognise, if and when they come to apply the clause—that it is implicit that the defence will apply even when it is assumed that the defamatory statement is wholly untrue, even when there is no possibility of it attracting the Clause 3 defence of honest opinion, and even when assuming that it is not privileged. Amendment 14 to Clause 4(1)(b) inserts a defence that,

“the defendant reasonably believed that publishing the statement complained of was in the public interest”,

notwithstanding that it was untrue, not the subject of honest opinion, and unprivileged.

I support Amendment 14, although not Amendment 23, because I value freedom of expression and freedom of speech so highly as to justify, on occasion, the destruction of an individual’s reputation without his having any opportunity whatever to vindicate himself. Noble Lords should recognise that that is the price exacted for the provision of a defence in the interest of freedom of speech.

There can be no question that in applying such a clause the court is bound to have regard to all the circumstances. Time and again it has been made perfectly plain that the Reynolds list is non-exhaustive. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Nicholls, said so, and in the recent Flood case in the Supreme Court, in which I was involved, not only did we say that in terms, but we brought into account various factors and considerations that did not feature in the Reynolds list.