Defamation Act 2013: Northern Ireland

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Viscount Colville of Culross]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for initiating this debate. Like all other noble Lords here, I am pleased that the Defamation Act has passed into law. I look forward to its commencement and the publication of its regulations. I am, however, dismayed that the Northern Ireland Executive have not been prepared to adopt the Act’s principal measures and reform the Province’s libel laws.

As a journalist I can tell your Lordships that it is not so much what happens in the courts but the prospect of what might happen which has such a chilling effect on free speech and encourages the imposition of self-censorship. The new Defamation Act has been deliberately drafted to ensure that authors are protected by a seriousness threshold and a public interest defence. Nowhere is this more necessary than in Northern Ireland.

I have spoken to the editor of the Belfast Telegraph, Mike Gilson, an experienced, respected journalist, who told me:

“Failing to adopt this sensible bill leaves all media and social media users at a serious disadvantage compared with the rest of the UK. In a small country without official opposition the media’s scrutinising role of government and institutions is even more crucial. I have edited newspapers in every country of the United Kingdom and the time and money now needed to fight off vexatious legal claims against us here is the highest I have ever experienced”.

His words were echoed by Mike Nesbitt, the Northern Irish politician who is bringing in a Private Member’s Bill, as has been mentioned.

After talking to diverse journalists in the Province, it seems to me that many of the Province’s politicians are notoriously thin skinned about criticism. Journalists and writers complain of their easy resort to the threat of defamation and keep Mr Paul Tweed, whom the noble Lord, Lord Lester mentioned, busy issuing threats of defamations.

Let me give on example. On 6 August 2012 the News Letter, one of the Province’s leading newspapers, reported that there was a row between politicians in County Antrim about whether to support a proposal to introduce plain cigarette packaging as it would adversely affect their constituents who worked in the local tobacco factory. The paper said that Ian Paisley Jnr, the local MP, was unavailable for comment because he was on holiday. As this was in August, it was perfectly reasonable that he should have been on holiday. Surely even the most hard-working politician is allowed to take a bit of time off to have a rest. However, his lawyer, Paul Tweed, wrote to the paper to say that Mr Paisley was not on holiday at the time of publication and to suggest that he was on holiday and unavailable to deal with the constituents’ concerns was defamatory. The News Letter published a clarification, but was there really a need to send a letter threatening defamation?

This is just one of many threatening letters that have been used to cow journalists in the Province. If journalists and authors are going to receive letters threatening defamation for such vexatious cases, imagine the fear there must be in publishing anything more critical of politicians. The new defences against libel available in the rest of the UK from later this year will offer them protection and surely encourage the advance of free speech in the Province. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has mentioned, it is not just the people of Northern Ireland who deserve to be protected by the libel reforms; the rest of the people of the United Kingdom do as well. The possibility that these libel tourists who flock to London will now flock to the Belfast libel courts seems very dangerous, and will threaten authors who thought that the cause of free speech had been so strongly enhanced by the passing of the Act.

Take the case of Terence Ewing, who has tried and failed to sue the Times newspaper in London. His case was thrown out there, and then he tried his luck in Belfast. Again, his case was thrown out—I gathered that he is banned from suing there—but in the process, many hours of journalists’ and lawyers’ time at Times Newspapers was expended. Mr Ewing’s efforts are a warning. He could be copied by other litigants who are no longer able to bring action in English courts but will start to threaten journalists through the Northern Irish courts.

During the Second Reading of the Defamation Bill in the House of Commons, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, mentioned, Ian Paisley Jr said that,

“there needs to be consultation across the jurisdictions of the UK to get this right and tie it up completely”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/6/12; col. 194.]

However, from what I understand, it is his party, led by Peter Robinson, which has rejected attempts so far to get this right. I gather that the First Minister of Northern Ireland thinks that there is little appetite for reform of the libel law among his electorate, but I ask him to think again. The Province has been a beacon and democracy and peace across the world. Only last week, we heard praise at the G8 summit at Enniskillen for the political leaders in Northern Ireland in making such huge progress to enshrine democracy in a place where, for so long, it appeared to have been under threat.

I remind the First Minister that an essential prop to a healthy and vibrant democracy is an active press which can scrutinise the political progress and hold truth to power, without the deadening threat of being taken to the libel courts. This is a wonderful moment to let free speech thrive. I ask the Minister to do everything possible to encourage the adoption of the great advances laid out in the Defamation Act, which will benefit not just the people of Northern Ireland but all the people of the United Kingdom and beyond.