The newspaper had lost a defamation action, and a leader criticised the law, and defended its journalist in terms which the complainant considered, in effect reaffirmed the original libel.
Held: There is no duty on a newspaper to reply to criticisms made of it by a claimant in a defamation action, which could be used to support a claim for any qualified privilege. The presence or otherwise of any duty to discuss the law of defamation was not relevant here. If successful, the defence would allow a dis-satisfied litigant with the privilege of influence, to set the complainant’s hard won victory at naught. Powerful considerations of public policy suggested that journalists should not have any privilege to attack those who had criticised them before the courts. The defence of qualified privilege failed.
Judges:
Eady J
Citations:
Times 23-Jul-2001
Citing:
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 . .
Cited – Reynolds TD v Times Newspapers Ltd; Ruddock and Witherow CA 8-Jul-1998
The claimant, the former Taoiseach of Ireland sought damages after the defendant newspaper published an article falsely accusing him of duplicity. The paper said that his position meant that they should have the defence of quaified privilege . .
Cited – Loutchansky v Times Newspapers Ltd QBD 26-Apr-2001
A defendant could not support a defence in defamation proceedings of qualified privilege by putting before the court matters of which it was unaware at the time of publication. The duty to publish and the interest in receiving the information, and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Media, Defamation
Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.78104