Defamation Bill

Debate between Lord Triesman and Lord McNally

Monday 17th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I was loath to interrupt the Minister while he was in full flow, but if I have understood properly the point that he made, there is an unwillingness on the part of the Government to try and compel anyone to go through any other process if that person concludes that the only process they really want to go through is testing the case in a court, with all the consequences. Part of the argument is that by forcing people to go through another process, it might indeed add to the costs of the entirety of the case, rather than potentially to manage and reduce those costs.

If I have understood that argument properly, have the noble Lord and the Government considered whether some independent advice could be given, as is sometimes suggested in, for example, matrimonial cases, whereby people are guided as to whether proceeding through the court is likely to be helpful or appropriate, rather than just plunging in? I suggest that that would be done at relatively minimal cost and might be significantly beneficial.

Forgive me for putting this at any length at this stage in the debate, but one of the reasons why that might be beneficial is that on occasions—and I have seen this—you find that you are dealing with people whose normal place of residence is overseas. They are not United Kingdom nationals and may, none the less, be representatives of significant pools of wealth or of large corporations. They tend to say that they may not be able to follow our legal practice particularly carefully but they have great confidence in the ability of our courts to take on cases and deal with them. By that stage, those people are then on one course, rather than another, with considerable costs, rather than otherwise—and I understand the point that has been made about management of processes in order to reduce costs. I ask the Minister and the Government to consider whether there is some way not of compelling people to take a particular course of action but to seek advice about the likelihood of one route working more successfully than another.

[Lord McNally]

Again, because I am not a lawyer, I will take that away and take advice on it. As regards wealthy individuals who want to test their cases before British judges, although we have been talking about judicial case management, we have a judiciary which is world renowned for its integrity and impartiality and we should not forget that. However, I will take that matter away.