Defamation Bill

Lord Taverne Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne]

My Lords, I shall be very brief. As I explained at the Second Reading of the Bill of my noble friend Lord Lester two years ago, I no longer regard myself as a lawyer because I ceased to practise in 1966 and, when I did practise, I knew nothing about libel law.

I want to make a brief point about safeguarding freedom of scientific publication in relation to Clause 4. The magazine Nature recently won a case in which it was sued by a man called El Nashi, the retired editor of a publication called Chaos, Solitons and Fractals. Nature reported criticisms of improper self-publication during his time as editor. In its defence, Nature pleaded truth and justification and also sought to rely on the Reynolds defence. It offered a right of reply, which was not taken up. The plaintiff unfortunately pursued his case in person, which greatly complicated the proceedings. The case took four years. It involved getting expert witnesses from different parts of the world and contacting staff who had moved on. It cost £1.5 million and took up a huge amount of management time.

I am advised that a new and effective public interest defence would have avoided that ordeal but that the Bill as it stands, with its new definition of the Reynolds defence, would not. Nor, I am told, would the Bill as it stands have benefited Ben Goldacre or Peter Wilmshurst, or Simon Singh in his dispute with chiropractors, in their ordeals. If the Minister, my noble friend Lord McNally, can show that this is wrong, I shall be delighted. If not, the Bill should be amended, and it seems that the Neill amendment, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Lester, would be the answer.