OSCE media freedom representative lauds passage of defamation bill by British Parliament | WPN World People News

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, Thursday hailed the adoption of a defamation law by the British Parliament that would make it harder for lawsuits to be pursued against media.

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, Bonn, 20 June 2011.

“These new provisions are a good step forward in the effort to establish a level playing field in defamation cases,” Mijatović said. “Unjustified lawsuits are costly and drawn-out affairs that waste journalists’ time and resources.”

Mijatović has consistently supported defamation reform in the United Kingdom, including the decriminalization of defamation which was passed by Parliament in 2009.

The new law requires that claimants must show they have or will suffer serious harm before bringing a defamation lawsuit. It brings in new statutory defences of truth and honest opinion to replace common law and introduces a defence of "responsible publication on matters of public interest”. It removes the presumption in favour of jury trials in defamation cases.

The law aims to restrict the so-called “libel tourism” trade, where foreign claimants file suits in plaintiff-friendly British courts. Foreign-based journalists will no longer be subject to British defamation suits and non-European Union residents must prove a British court is the proper jurisdiction for their claims to be heard.

Source: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe