Criminal libel; one faltering step forward, now two steps back
A little more than a month ago, I wondered why legislators are so loath to repeal criminal libel provisions. However, in a subsequent post, I acknowledged that section 34 of the Defamation Bill, 2006 as introduced provided for the abolition of the common law offences of criminal libel, seditious libel and obscene libel. It now seems that I wrote too soon and that my original skepticism was justified. No sooner had my fingers left the keyboard on the second post than news came that the Bill had returned to the top of the legislative agenda. The Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights has begun the Committee Stage of the Bill. Several amendments (pdf) are being considered, almost all of which are retrenchments upon the advances made in earlier drafts of the Bill.
It seems to me that the longer it takes to enact the Bill, the more restrictive it becomes. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of criminal libel. Head 65(1) of the draft Bill appended to the Report of the Legal Advisory Group on Defamation (disclosure: I was a member of the Group) provided for the abolition of the common law offences of criminal, blasphemous, seditious and obscene libel.…
