The defendant was a voter in a parliamentary election. He wrote two letters which were published in a newspaper, the ‘Morning Post,’ which reflected upon the character of one of the candidates in his constituency. The plaintiff was awarded damages. The defendant applied for a new trial on the grounds inter alia was that it was justifiable for an elector bona fide to communicate to the constituency any matter respecting a candidate which he believed to be true and believed to be material to the election. The application was refused. The defendant had to go further and show that the elector was entitled to publish it to all the world, as the publication was in a newspaper. Counsel for the defendant submitted that if no more was done than was necessary to make the matters known to the electors the publication was privileged, and that whether or not anything more was done was a question for the jury. (Lord Denman CJ) ‘However large the privilege of electors may be, it is extravagant to suppose that it can justify the publication to all the world of facts injurious to a person who happens to stand in the situation of a candidate.’
Judges:
Coleridge J, Lord Denman CJ
Citations:
(1837) 8 C and P 222
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd and others HL 28-Oct-1999
Fair Coment on Political Activities
The defendant newspaper had published articles wrongly accusing the claimant, the former Prime Minister of Ireland of duplicity. The paper now appealed, saying that it should have had available to it a defence of qualified privilege because of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Defamation
Updated: 24 November 2022; Ref: scu.194516