Could libel reform have a damaging impact on the public’s access to justice? This was one of the key questions to emerge last night from ‘Libel Reform: in the public’s interest?’, a public debate organised by Gray’s Inn in association with the Media Standards Trust and INFORRM.
Chaired by Helena Kennedy, an audience of lawyers, journalists, politicians and campaigners listened to the panel range over everything from the affordability of libel claims, the difference between individual bloggers and large media organisations and whether libel is too ‘claimant friendly’, to standards in journalism, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and the impact of the government’s libel reform bill (expected in March) on news reporting.
All of a sudden Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia decided to revive the crazymaking debate regarding the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection for women—or, apparently, lack thereof. … In any case, the original rationale for excluding women from the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment did not hold and has not ever held any water from the moment it was ratified until now. All of which brings us to the backstory of the Fourteenth Amendment, and to the thorny history of gender-neutral language in English.