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UK Libel Law Is a Global Threat To Web Free Speech
uctpjac writes "London media lawyer Emily MacManus argues that UK libel law has three features which make it the 'defamation tourism' capital of the world and a serious threat to Web free speech. First, there is no free speech presumption in the UK as there is, for example, in the US. Second, every access of a Web page is considered to be a separate act of publication in the UK (unlike the US, where 'original publication' holds). Third, 'no-win-no-fee' libel litigation is now allowed in the UK. If any blog, anywhere, publishes something you'd like taken down, threaten libel action in the UK: no one except the super-rich can afford to even take these cases to court, so media lawyers advise publishers to 'take it down, take it down quickly, take it down again.' There's not much chance that the judges will move the law any time soon because they just aren't seeing the cases that could cause them to set new precedent."
But the 'no-win-no-fee' will make it a no-cost low-effort to suppress unwanted speech. There is a big difference between libel and things you do not want to hear.
That is, provided the page in question actually is libelous. If I had a web page on, say, UK Prime minister Gordon Brown, and wrote something true about him that he did not like, a libel claim could make my provider take it down. That *is* bad for free speech.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
Extradition is governed by treaties and only applies to criminal cases. Most extradition treaties require the demanding country to prove a prima facie case of a crime. If the UK suddenly made libel a crime so it could extradite violators, most countries would change their extradition treaties accordingly.
The article is just being sensationalist. It sucks if you are in the UK, or have your servers there, or if you have property within the UK, but the rest of the world is not affected by the UK civil law. The end effect will be that servers will not be hosted in the UK and media companies will avoid it as well.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
English court judgements, and that is what it would be, can be enforced easily in England and Wales. They can in most cases be enforced in Scotland and Northern Ireland with a bit more difficulty, and similarly across the rest of the EU.
IANAL, but I understand that, at the discretion of the local courts, civil judgements obtained in one common law jurisdiction can be enforced in other common law jurisdictions, so English judgements have been enforced in the US, Australia etc and vice versa, usually involving cases where someone has been judged to owe money in one jurisdiction and has been traced to another.
However, because of the issue of libel tourism from the UK, US states have recently begun to specifically exclude the enforcement of English libel judgements in their jurisdictions.
Sooooo, what does this mean to a citizen of another country (say the United States) who has no assets in GB? Are they able to reach out and touch you?
Probably not.
Well, in the USA, there legislation in progress to explicitly prohibit US courts from assisting UK libel verdict enforcement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism#Proposed_Federal_legislation
These laws were prompted by rich Saudis linked to terrorism financing suing in UK courts for libel.
Actually, in the UK, truth is a strict defense against libel. Holocaust Denier David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt over the UK edition of her book, Denying the Holocaust, in which she called Irving
Irving lost after a trial in which his scholarship on the Holocaust was shown to be fraudulent and he was demonstrated to be a bigot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Libel_suit
In the U.S., truth is not a strict defense against libel:
Your belief above that honestly believing something is sufficient, is not strictly true: It depends upon the jurisdiction you're in.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
No - "fair comment" is an absolute defense to defamation suits. You can say "This product sucks", and the fact that the manufacturers disagree and dislike this is irrelevant.
What isn't defended is making factual claims that are not true - you can't say "This product violates safety laws" unless you have evidence that it does.
(repeat from below)
Within the EU, this is relatively straightforward. The Brussels Regime provides a framework for one member state to enforce the judgement of the Courts in another member state.
Within the US, there is also (in most cases) a mechanism for the enforcement of a foreign (i.e. UK) monetary judgements, but this isn't automatic by any means and is dependent on state law.
It should be noted that, in both cases, such judgements won't be honoured if the appeal process is still ongoing.
The Brussels Convention - http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:41968A0927(01):EN:HTML
Uniform Foreign Money Judgments Recognition Act 1962 - http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/fnact99/1920_69/ufmjra62.pdf
Mothers against drunk driving is the party that is responsible for that. Before they got the law changed you could drink at 18.
you cannot be 'charged' with libel or slander -- it's a civil, not criminal case, -- you have to be sued for it.
UK judgments, and really those from any country, can be enforced against US citizens, even those that have never been to that country and have no assets anywhere other than in the US. Now a US court will require that the party trying to enforce the foreign judgment demonstrate that you had sufficient contacts with the foreign state to warrant personal jurisdiction, but directing speech to people in that country may be enough to enable the other party to enforce that judgment in the US. Its not just "oh, I don't live in the UK and have never been there, so I can't be sued there." Nothing is further from the truth. That is why is is a global threat to free speech.
It is not that you made false and/or misleading claims, the way the law is written you can face libel even if your claims are true as a way for the person, organization, or company you are making the claims against files a case against you in the UK and you cannot afford to defend yourself or you cannot prove the claims are true because the person who told you them refuses to fly to the UK to defend you because it costs too much to do so.
It is not innocent until proven guilty, you are considered guilty and have to prove yourself innocent. It can be abused to take away free speech by claiming said speech on the Internet is libel in the UK.
Everywhere else in the world it can be considered the truth, but in the UK it is libel unless you can prove it is true.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Doesn't matter if they were "combatants" or not - torture is still against the Geneva Convention.
"I called Prince William a drunken embarrassment on my blog, and a judge convicted me of libel."
He is a drunken embarrassment. Truth is an accepted defence for libel in the UK, so you'll have no problem. The crap British newspapers love printing pictures and stories about drunk prince(sses).
The British Constitution is widely misunderstood by those who come from countries with explicit constitutions -- in particular the USA.
Basically, more than any modern democracy, Britain's constitution is underwritten by revolution. There have been several revolutions and civil wars, as well as the odd tense standoff, in English history which settled various points of constitutional practice.
One of these events -- the Glorious Revolution -- established with some finality that Parliament, and not Crown, is the supreme source of law in England. The Crown is retained for the same reason programmers have kept fopen() and fwrite(). It's simple, well understood and there's a lot of law that relies on it being there. We kept the interface, not the code.
The English could pass an Act to make themselves a constitutional republic if they so wished. Her Majesty would have no choice but to sign away her monarchy. In any case, she'd still be Queen of Australia, Canada and a number of other countries.
Otherwise you're right about 'unspoken' agreements. The usual term is 'conventions'. They tend to be well established in case law; they are not so much unspoken or unwritten as lacking a single documentary source.
Likewise, Australia's constitution, though written, has a lot of conventions surrounding its meaning that a naive reading would not detect. On paper, for example, the Governor-General as Queen's representative has the power to appoint and dismiss ministers, replace governments or declare war. In practice he or she does not have such a power (but it has been established that they have the power to dismiss a government that cannot pass a budget through the Senate).
Yes, I used to be a law student before I came to my senses.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
Actually, some important rights in Magna Carta were removed a couple of years ago.