Falkland Islands Referendum
Debate between Guy Opperman and Michael Ellis(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Guy Opperman
My hon. Friend makes his point most eloquently. I could not possibly improve on it. I will point out, however, that barely two weeks ago, before the referendum, Argentina’s Foreign Minister was saying that this was a
“British attempt to manipulate the Question of the Malvinas Islands through a vote by the population implanted by the United Kingdom”.
It is ridiculous to suggest that these people, some of whom have been there for nine generations, have been “implanted”. They are men and women who were born on the Falklands and have lived there for generations, had children, and made their lives together. Like the populations of most countries in Latin America, including Argentina, the Falklands population has grown through a flow of migration. The Falkland Islands constitutes a nation of immigrants who have developed a distinctive culture and identity. For Argentina to deny them the right to self-determination is for it to question the Argentines’ own claim to the rights that they take so seriously.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Is it not the case that Argentina, sadly, does not have a particularly happy history on respecting the freedoms of its own people and democracy there? Will my hon. Friend join me in criticising Argentina for its actions against cruise lines and the predilection it appears to have developed in recent months for obstructing the free passage of civilian passenger vessels that happen to have any business or trade with the Falkland Islands?
Guy Opperman
The reality is that a blockade of protectionism and intimidation is taking place around the Falkland Islands. We have seen actions ranging from preventing the use of the Falkland Islands flag and disrupting shipping, as my hon. Friend made clear, to ongoing organisational protectionism. Do we really, in 2013, have large countries blocking free trade in that way?
Defamation Bill
Debate between Guy Opperman and Michael Ellis(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who is a fellow member of the Home Affairs Committee. It will come as no surprise to Members that I support the Bill. I do so because it defends the sanctified right of freedom of speech that this House has sought to protect for generations and, I expect, will continue to seek to defend. But it is also a good Bill because it recognises that there are limitations to the right of freedom of speech—sadly, the courts have not always recognised in recent years that there are limitations to certain rights. With every right there is a responsibility, for example, and it would not go amiss to notify the human rights courts of that point occasionally. The right to freedom of speech has been recognised in the courts for many years but, to use the classic example, it does not extend to allowing a person to go into a crowded theatre and shout, “Fire.” We have to recognise that those rights must be curtailed.
The Bill will rebalance the law to ensure that people who have been defamed are able to protect their reputations, and it is right that they should be able to do so. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are not, and must not be, unjustifiably impeded by actual or even threatened defamation or libel actions. The reality is that sometimes even the threat of a defamation suit can prevent a person from making a fair comment on something, giving an opinion about a product, service or individual, or expressing a doubt about something. Many will take the view that it is simply not worth it and decide it is easier not to refer to a particular area of controversy because they do not want to risk getting a solicitor’s letter and the very expensive defamation actions that would follow. The Bill will ensure that the threat of libel proceedings is not used to frustrate scientific, medical or academic debate, for example. Sadly, there have been examples of the peer-reviewed work of academic experts and others and their freedom to speak freely on those subjects being endangered by threats or actual suits for defamation.
We need to reduce the potential for trivial claims and address the perception that has arisen in some parts of the world that this country is suitable for libel tourists, the people who come to this country, despite the fact that only one or two of their books or magazines have been sold here, to take an action for defamation because the law in their home country is in some way unsuitable for their purposes. We do not want this country to be seen as a libel tourism haven, and that is addressed in the Bill.
In my judgment, it is right that the test for determining that a statement is suitable for defamation proceedings is whether it has caused “serious harm”. Cases sometimes go before the courts in this country when even a reference to someone being ugly or in some way antisocial is enough to justify a libel action. It is a matter of fact and degree, but in my judgment it is right that serious harm should be proven before a statement can really be considered defamatory.
The Bill also deals with the new statutory defence of responsible publication on matters of public interest, to which I have already alluded. Such things as peer-reviewed academic, medical and scientific analysis, which sometimes necessarily has the effect of rubbishing someone else’s academic work, should be appropriately open to debate, so long as there is no clear malice, and not subject to over-sensitive legal actions. The Bill updates and extends the circumstances in which the defences of absolute and qualified privilege are available, including extending qualified privilege to peer-reviewed material.
I am also impressed by the way the Bill goes some way towards addressing the issues that have arisen in recent years concerning the publication of defamatory material on the internet. The single publication rule that the Bill introduces will prevent an action from being brought in relation to the publication of the same material by the same publisher after the one-year limitation period. It has been quite easy for people to take defamation actions against newspaper websites, for example, and others if they repeat the libel that was originally the subject of an action. It is very easy for those websites to be insufficiently monitored so that they repeat the libel and a further and new action can then be taken. It is right that a limitation of one year be put on that, because the nature of the internet is such that it is very easy to draw down the material that was the subject of the libel and repeat it.
Another feature of the Bill that has been referred to in the Chamber is that it will remove the presumption of a jury trial in defamation actions. I would passionately seek to defend the right to a jury trial in almost every case, and certainly criminal cases. There are now very few civil cases that would be subject to jury trial—I can think of malicious prosecution, false arrest and false imprisonment, but very few others.
This Bill will not remove the right to a jury trial in defamation proceedings, but it will remove the presumption that a jury trial should be the forum that is utilised. We should of course trust our judges to exercise their lawful discretion to order a jury trial when they think it appropriate, and there will be some cases in which a jury trial will be appropriate, especially one involving one person’s word against another when there is very little other ancillary evidence, because juries are equipped to make a judgment on witnesses when they hear them from the witness box.
Guy Opperman
On jury trials, does my hon. Friend not accept, however, that in civil liability trials and in all number of other pieces of litigation, the judge is taken out of the assessment of the truth of individual witnesses, and that credit is something judges are well used to judging on a regular basis? Does he not also accept that there is a possibility of our merely returning to a situation in which we have endless jury trials, instead of trusting the judges to get on with the decision?
Michael Ellis
I recognise my hon. Friend’s point, and the common law will no doubt develop in this area, but I hope that, if this Bill becomes law and removes the presumption in favour of jury trials, judges will recognise that jury trials will be less frequent than heretofore. I will be corrected if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that until relatively recently juries in defamation cases had a part to play in deciding the quantum of damages after successful defamation proceedings, and I recall also some rather large figures for damages awarded against various periodicals. I am a great fan of Private Eye, possibly because I have not featured in it—[Interruption.] I am not inviting it, and I emphasise that!
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I, too, support the Bill, and on defamation I fundamentally believe, as Shakespeare wrote:
“The purest pleasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation: that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.”
That was said in “Richard II”, a king who sadly did not last long enough as a Yorkist to enjoy much of his spotless reputation, as he was shortly killed thereafter, but his reputation, spotless as it was, went with him to the grave.
The world is clearly changing. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) and I shared an illustrious, or non-illustrious, career as barristers in a former life, and my old copy of “Carter-Ruck on Libel and Slander”, the definitive edition from 1997, features not a single paragraph about libel and slander on the internet, because of course such a thing did not exist in those days.
We now face the dreaded heretic that is the internet troll. Many of us would not have known, until a couple of years ago when we took public office, what an internet troll was, nor would we have been subjected to the great delights of annihilation in print or prose, such that we all now have to face the slings and arrows of outrageous internet fortune on a regular basis, but the development of the law requires this Defamation Bill, which we are considering, and it can only be a good thing.
My hon. Friend said that we must move with the times, but sadly the reason why we have Lord Leveson’s inquiry is that too many political parties moved with The Times for far too long, and Mr Murdoch and his empire have been far too close to too many people on a repeated basis—such that I am beginning to distance myself from The Times.
Guy Opperman
I accept the possibility that my hon. Friend was not referring to that, but was referring to the development of events over the past few years.
It is absolutely vital to ensure that we have a free press and an ability to speak out without fear or favour—that is fundamental—but justice must be accessible to the people who receive comments from such a press. The Bill definitely increases that accessibility, and I welcome that wholeheartedly. Any interpretation of such legislation must take account of the countless stories told throughout this debate of people whose reputations have been annihilated on the internet and elsewhere.
Guy Opperman
I apologise to my hon. Friend. It is possible that he dines in larger and more salubrious establishments than the rest of us, who are more Little Chef and Happy Eater people. I am sure that those days of the Ritz are sadly gone.
As lawyers practising in this field, we know that it is important to have accessibility, because without that there is no justice. There is a long history of those who have been defamed, from Oscar Wilde to Winston Churchill to Marie Stopes to W. E. Gladstone. It is good to see the Liberal home affairs spokesman, the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), in his place. Of course, Gladstone was the last man to be libelled from the grave. His son took an action on behalf of the reputation of W. E. Gladstone and his family, who he felt had been maligned and libelled, and was successful before a jury trial.
That brings me nicely, with a slightly Radio 2 link, to jury trials. That issue must be addressed with robust guidance. It is not sufficient to say to the courts that the presumption should be against jury trials. The Secretary of State said that in matters where there is a genuine test of credibility, there would be a jury trial. I entirely accept that, but it would be extraordinarily rare to have a libel case without a genuine test of credibility. The whole purpose of libel law is to test the meaning and intent of certain words.
Michael Ellis
Does my hon. Friend accept that in many cases it will not only be about the word of one person, the plaintiff, against that of the other, the defendant, because there might be supportive material that backs up one against the other, such as e-mails, an exchange of letters, other documentary or ancillary evidence, or supportive or corroborative evidence from other witnesses?
Guy Opperman
I regret that my hon. Friend—eminent lawyer, lion of Northampton and feared throughout the west midlands legal circles though he is—has identified the fundamental problem with his own argument in a sort of self-defeating prophesy. There will surely be an assessment of the individual merit of these e-mails and of whether they have been written by an individual who can be accounted for. All those matters will come under the test of credibility that he has espoused and that was put forward by the Secretary of State.
That all goes back to the issue of a jury trial. I have no problem with jury trials. I conducted nine murder trials and umpteen Crown court trials. The short point is this: if we are to reform the libel system so that defamation is no longer tried by a jury, save in the most exceptional circumstances, the test cannot be, “Who do we believe?” As I attempted to explain earlier, that question is assessed by district judges, county court judges, circuit judges and every other judge in the country on a daily basis. We do not need a jury trial to assess that. One could argue that 99% of all trials in this country are conducted in the absence of a jury, when judges assess the merits of an individual’s credibility. With respect, I urge the Secretary of State and the Committee to address this issue so that there is proper guidance on it.
This matter has rightly been dealt with on a cross-party basis. I support the idea of having a draft Bill. It is patently clear to those of us who have endured the delights of guiding such wonderful Bills as the Health and Social Care Bill through this House, drafted as well as they were, that we are now debating a Bill that has been considered by sane and intelligent persons on a cross-party basis, and that we are therefore fine-tuning rather than redrafting. That, I assure the House, is something that we should all welcome.
Identity Documents Bill
Debate between Guy Opperman and Michael Ellis(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Michael Ellis
To continue the example of the house sale, an individual buying a house despite knowing that there is something wrong with it, such as subsidence, is the same as the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) in respect of his ID card.