Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:27:39 -0400

From: Jason Neyers

Subject: Jameel

I post for Ken Oliphant:

Out today from the House of Lords: Jameel v Wall Street Journal Europe [2006] UKHL 44.

Held, (1) the rule entitling a trading corporation to sue in libel when it can prove no financial loss is not an unreasonable restraint on the right to publish protected by article 10 ECHR and did not, for that or any other reason, have to be revised. Baroness Hale (dissenting on this issue) would have amended the law to require the company to show that the libel was "likely to cause it financial loss".

(2) the "Reynolds" qualified privilege applying to newspaper reports of matters of public interest (or "the Reynolds public interest defence": at [46] per Lord Hoffmann) should not be withheld simply because the newspaper failed to delay publication of its allegation to enable the claimant to comment. (The paper had reported that the claimant "could not be reached for comment".)

I've only had time for a skim read, so no guarantees I've got everything correct!

One thing that struck me, though, is that the HL has yet again decided a human rights case with absolutely no mention of the argument that the Convention rights have horizontal effect attributable to the court's duty as a public body to act compatibly with those rights (HRA s 6(1) and (3)). Does anyone else find this as puzzling as I do?

Ken

Goldberg, John wrote:

Hi All:

I'm teaching a defamation course this semester, and was just about to teach a class on comparative defamation law, with particular emphasis on the U.S. law v. U.K. and Commwealth law. Now we have Jameel v. WSJ from the House of Lords. Any initial reactions (esp. from U.K. scholars) on the likely significance of this decision?

--
Jason Neyers
January Term Director
Associate Professor of Law
Faculty of Law
University of Western Ontario
N6A 3K7
(519) 661-2111 x. 88435

<<<< Previous Message  ~  Index  ~  Next Message >>>>>