Libel defences

Question 1

It has to come from a senior police officer or government department

Answer 1

• You may have qualified privilege
• Qualified privilege is conditions include fairness and accuracy without malice
• Qualified privilege under the 2013 Defamation Act applies to governments, authorities performing governmental functions anywhere in the world and international organisations or international conferences.

Question 2

Open court or houses of parliament

Answer 2

• Absolute privilege for court reports
• High qualified privilege for parliamentary reports.
• High privilege means it can only be defeated by malice.
• Conditions include fairness and accuracy.
• Absolute privilege enables you to report malicious statements made in evidence.
• Absolute privilege applies to foreign courts and international courts and tribunals

Question 3

Public meeting [held for a lawful purpose]

Answer 3

• Qualified privilege (fair accurate, and in public interest)
• Need to be willing to accept new suggestions and ideas to the side of the person being attacked + report the gist of that if provided.
• Extended to public meetings abroad

Question 4

Press conference

Answer 4

• Qualified privilege
• Similar to public meeting
• Any member of the media had access
• Excluded one to one
• Report must be fair and accurate
• Extended to abroad

Question 5

The statement you are reporting is substantially true

Answer 5

• The defence will succeed if your report contains substantially true imputations that ‘do not seriously harm the claimants reputation.’
• You have to prove this

Question 6

‘Honest Opinion’

Answer 6

• Such as as a review or editorial.
• It is opinion
• report publication includes ‘in general or specific term, the basis of the opinion.’
• ‘an honest person could have held the opinion’ based on a ‘fact which existed at the time the statement complained of was published’, or anything asserted to be a fact in a privileged statement published before the statement complained of.’
• Opinion can be based on allegations made in a court case, in parliament, in a peer-reviewed statement in a scientific or academic journal, or in a publication satisfying the new public interest defence UNDER SECTION 4 OF THE DEFAMATION ACT 2013.
• The honest part of the defence means the defence fails if the author of the statement did not hold the opinion, or if the reporter/publisher ‘knew or ought to have known that the author did not hold the opinion’.

Question 7

Scientific or academic journal

Answer 7

• QUALIFIED PRIVELEGE
• statement must relate to scientific or academic matter
• statement was peer-reviewed by editor and one or more persons with academic expertise relating to the matter/issue.
• Malice will defeat defence.