Defamation Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

David Morris.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacShane]

This is a welcome Bill. I welcome the constructive approach of the new Secretary of State and his team and congratulate them on their appointments. The Bill will now go to another place, where we are rather more well provided with learned friends, the lawyers, who may have some thoughts on how it might have to be amended.

Nearly two years ago, in an exchange with the Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), I asked:

“Do we not need a small claims court for libel cases which could quickly…at a low cost in damages and expenses deliver remedial justice, apology and correction?”—[Official Report, 29 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 161.]

I very much hoped that this Bill would satisfy that request, but to be honest, it does not. It tidies up many of the problems to do with libel tourism and scientific publication that have caused a great deal of concern and brought together a big coalition of different campaigners who have influenced all parties. However, that does not allow the small person—what one patronisingly calls “the little man”—to have the quick, swift redress that exists in other countries when he has suffered a clear wrong in a newspaper. That is why the parallel work of Lord Leveson must be taken into consideration in the other place and when the Bill comes back here so that we have a complete package of reform that puts right many of the injustices that so many people have faced at the hands of a mixture of very powerful media oligarchs and legal oligarchs.

I want particularly to refer to the problem of libel tourism. Right now, there is an ongoing case initiated by a Mr Pavel Karpov, who is a 35-year-old Interior Ministry employee in Russia. He was involved in the sequence of events that led to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, which has attracted much attention in this House. Through a unanimous resolution of the House of Commons, it has been decided that he and 59 other named Russian officials should not be allowed to enter Britain, although the Foreign Office and the Home Office are still equivocating on that. On 1 August, Mr Karpov filed an action in the High Court against William Browder, who is a British citizen, and Jamison Firestone, who is an American citizen resident in the United Kingdom—Sergei Magnitsky’s former boss and direct boss respectively—in order to silence them in their campaign to bring about justice for Mr Magnitsky. Pavel Karpov has hired Geraldine Proudler, the partner and head of the reputation and media litigation practice at Olswang, at roughly £600 an hour, when he himself earns $600 a month. He has hired Andrew Caldecott QC—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to confirm that the cases that he is describing are not the subject of active proceedings?

[Mr MacShane]

No, Sir, they are not. They are just filed at the moment and can be discussed. No charges have been initiated.

Such cases are a prime example of libel tourism. One of President Putin’s chief functionaries still thinks that he can get away with libel tourism in this country. I hope that someone in the Russian embassy reads this Bill and understands that that kind of libel tourism is no longer acceptable.