Defamation – cearta.ie

In an interview in this morning’s Irish Times, the EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders (pictured right) raised serious concerns about the operation of Ireland’s defamation laws:

Ireland’s defamation laws are being used to ‘pressure journalists’ – EU commissioner

Low bar for lawsuits in Ireland ‘raises concerns’ over freedom to expose corruption

Ireland’s defamation laws should be reviewed as they may suppress the ability of the media to expose corruption … Irish defamation laws are notoriously strict, providing a low bar for lawsuits against journalists and media organisations that are often used to put pressure on journalists.

He made the same points later this afternoon when he addressed the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs. In his opening statement (draft here; pdf) he repeated that “Ireland’s defamation laws raise concerns as regards the ability of the press to expose corruption” (p6) and that “the frequent use and high costs of defamation cases raise concerns” (p7; update: reported Irish Examiner | Irish Independent | TheJournal.ie).

In questions from members of the Committee, Senator Michael McDowell commented that he had been the Minister for Justice who started the reform in the early 2000s (full disclosure, I was on the Group that advised him in this regard), and he agreed with the Commissioner that “Irish defamation law is a little bit suffocating of investigative journalism” and that there “is scope for further reform”.…

The truth, pure and simple, as a defence to defamation claims after Depp v NGN

3 November, 20208 November, 2020

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| Defamation, Defamation, Defamation Act 2009

Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Sun masthead, all pix via wikipedia The truth, as Oscar Wilde has Algernon Moncrieff remark to Jack Worthing in Act I of The Importance of Being Ernest, is rarely pure and never simple. Nowhere is this more evident than in a defamation courtroom. At common law, the defence of justification to a claim for defamation averred that the words complained of, in their natural and ordinary meaning, were true in substance and in fact. For example, in Irving v Penguin Books Ltd [2000] EWHC QB 115 (11 April 2000), American historian Deborah Lipstadt estabished that holocaust-denier David Irving had deliberately distorted evidence relating to the Holocaust, and thus successfully relied on the defence of justification to defeat Irving’s claim of defamation. In Ireland, the common law has been replaced by section 16(1) of the Defamation Act 2009 (also here), which provides that the defence of truth is made out where the defendant proves “that the statement in respect of which the action was brought is true in all material respects”. In England, the equivalent statutory provision is much more straightforward: section 2(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 provides that it “is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true”.…

Still kicking the can on defamation reform after four years

1 November, 20201 November, 2020

| 2 Comments

| 2016-17 Reform, Defamation

Today is the fourth anniversary of the commencement of the Department of Justice’s current review of Ireland’s defamation laws. Earlier this week, a newspaper leader and a blogpost provided updates on where we are on our slow boat to defamation reform. The Defamation Act, 2009 (also here) passed all stages in the Oireachtas on 9 July 2009; it was signed into law by the President on 23 July 2009; and it – eventually – entered into force on 1 January 2010. Section 5 of the Act provides that the Minister for Justice had to commence a review of its application within 5 years after the passing of the Act, and had to complete that review within a year. 2014 and 2015 came and went, and no review had commended by 9 July 2014, 23 July 2014, or 1 January 2015. Eventually, four years ago today, on 1 November 2016, the Department of Justice commenced a review of the Act, and launched a consultation process to inform the review. The submissions are available here (my thoughts are here). Having started a few years late, it was too much to hope that it would be completed within a year.…

Defamation, the Galapagos Islands Division of the law of torts

9 October, 2020

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| Defamation

Discussing themes in the law of Tort in (2007) 81 Australian Law Journal 609, 615 (via StuDoc), Mr Justice David Ipp (pictured left), then a judge of the Supreme Court of Western Australia and later a judge of the Court of Appeal of New South Wales, described the law of defamation as “the Galapagos Islands Division of the law of torts”:

The tort of defamation has evolved all on its own and has created legal forms and practices unknown anywhere else. It has evolved its own dialect and adopted esoteric customs. It thrives, for example, on distinctions between inferences upon inferences, on the one hand, and inferences upon implications on the other, and between contextual and common or garden imputations. Defamation law is devoted to jury decisions even though this devotion causes delay and additional costs and the role of the jury keeps changing. Pleadings in defamation actions are as complex, as pedantic and as technical as anything known to Dickens. Interlocutory disputes continue to beset plaintiffs and there are often massive delays in getting defamation cases to trial. Damages seem out of proportion to damages awards in other categories of cases.

The words are certainly true of Ireland now, even if they may have been “hyperbole” which gave “insufficient credit to the landmark uniform defamation laws” then recently enacted in Australia (Hemming (2009) 11 University of Notre Dame Australia Law Review 84 (pdf).…

Striking the balance of the constitutional protections of free speech and good name in Irish defamation cases

14 September, 20207 November, 2020

| 4 Comments

| Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Expression

1. Balancing competing rights
Irish defamation cases are increasingly replete with comments stating the need to balance the constitutional right to freedom of expression with the constitutional right to a good name. Article 40.6.1(i) of the Constitution protects “right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions”; whilst Article 40.3.2 provides that the “State shall … by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the … good name … of every citizen”. Recent cases citing these rights together include Watson v Campos [2016] IEHC 18 (14 January 2016) [28] (Barrett J); Rooney v Shell E&P Ireland [2017] IEHC 63 (20 January 2017) [31]-[32] (Ní Raifeartaigh J); Ryanair v Channel 4 Television [2017] IEHC 651 (05 October 2017) [49]-[52] (Meenan J).

The language of balancing of competing constitutional rights is longstanding and widespread, in Ireland and elsewhere; and it is deployed in these cases to foreclose an a priori outcome where one right is automatically favoured over the other. Irish constitutional law does indeed subscribe to a hierarchy of rights in some cases (see, eg, People (DPP) v Shaw [1982] IR 1, 63 (Kenny J)); but that is usually unprincipled and largely unworkable (see, eg, Attorney General v X [1992] 1 IR 1, [1992] IESC 1 (5 March 1992) [138]-[139] (McCarthy J), [184] (Egan J); Sunday Newspapers Ltd v Gilchrist and Rogers [2017] IESC 18 (23 March 2017) [36] (O’Donnell J) (Denham CJ, Clarke, MacMenamin and Dunne JJ concurring)); [update] it has been rejected where freedom of expression has been balanced against the right to a fair trial (DPP v Independent News and Media plc [2017] IECA 333 (21 December 2017) [13]-[14] (Edwards J) (Finlay-Geoghegan J concurring) (applying Gilchrist)) [/update]; and it has not been deployed at all in defamation cases when freedom of expression competes with the right to a good name.…

Man wins ‘fleeting defamation’ case and is awarded €500 – should the law of defamation really concern itself with such a trifle?

12 December, 20194 March, 2020

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| 2016-17 Reform, Defamation

The latin maxim “de minimis non curat lex” is usually translated as “the law does not concern itself with trifles”, meaning the courts will not consider trifling matters. Christmas may be the time for trifles (like the Christmas trifle pictured left), but the Courts are not the place for them. I was reminded of the maxim today when I read the headline that a “Man wins ‘fleeting defamation’ case against Luas and is awarded €500“. The judge is reported (here and here) to have found that:

there was a “fleeting defamation” … but, “having regard to the fact it was almost immediately expunged”, he could not find any lasting damage to his reputation or good name. In the circumstances, he awarded nominal damages of €500 [plus costs] … There was a “momentary defamation” which was almost immediately corrected such that people in the vicinity could not have reasonably formed any lasting adverse opinion of the plaintiff, …

Given the trifling sum of nominal damages, the plaintiff is lucky to have received his costs. Even more so, in my view, is he lucky to have been successful at all. I don’t think that the law of defamation should be concerned with such trifles.…

Denis O’Brien’s case against the Sunday Business Post should never have reached the High Court – updated

3 March, 201915 March, 2019

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| Defamation

In today’s Sunday Business Post (as trailed on the front cover, here; element left), I have an OpEd (sub req’d) in which I argue that O’Brien’s case should never have reached the High Court, and that the Department of Justice needs to publish its review of the Defamation Act as soon as possible (you can download it below). It’s part of a bumper collection of articles on the case (spread here and here):

Emmet Oliver: A man named Sue. The eagerness with which Denis O’Brien has taken legal actions in recent years shows the urgent need for a comprehensive overhaul of Ireland’s libel laws.

Francesca Comyn: A refusal to wave the white flag. At its core, The Sunday Business Post’s victory over tycoon Denis O’Brien in the High Court was a broader win for journalism and the Irish media.

Susan O’Keeffe: Defamation ruling a victory for freedom of the press. Even when journalists are sure of their facts, they take a risk once they tangle with power, a risk worth taking because it’s important for journalism and democracy.

Eoin O’Dell: O’Brien’s case should never have reached the High Court. The Department of Justice needs to publish its review of the Defamation Act as soon as possible (you can download it below).…

It’s time to abolish juries in defamation cases

28 September, 201729 September, 2017

| 1 Comment

| 2016-17 Reform, Defamation

Libel cases in England and Wales are “better off without juries”, according to Sir Mark Warby, the High Court judge with responsibility for the Media and Communications List of the Queen’s Bench Division. As reported yesterday in the Brief, the legal newsletter of The Times, he was speaking on Tuesday at the London conference of the Media Law Resource Centre, an American organisation. He said that he “does not regret the passing of the jury at all”, and he pointed out (pdf) that there are many advantages to the “virtual abolition” of juries in defamation cases:

It has removed the territorial disputes that quite often used to arise, over whether a given issue is within the province of the judge, or that of the jury. In addition, this reform has all but eliminated the practice of arguing the same point to different threshold standards on different occasions. It is now possible for many more cases to reach a final resolution more economically by early judicial decisions on key issues of fact, or mixed issues of law and fact.

In England and Wales, section 11 of the Defamation Act 2013 provides that defamation actions are to be tried without a jury unless the court orders otherwise.…