Facts: This case related to the publication of an Army Council report, in response to allegations made by the claimant in the House of Lords;

Held: The court said a “privileged occasion is, in reference to qualified privilege, an occasion where the person who makes a communication has an interest or a duty, legal, social, or moral, to make it to the person to whom it is made, and the person to whom it is so made has a corresponding interest or duty to receive it”

⇒ “A privileged occasion… rebuts the prima facie presumption of malice” → so where the defendant shows a legal, social, or moral reason to make statements, then the claimant has to show malice (i.e. show the defendant knew it was false or was reckless to its truth or falsity)

Facts: The defendant had reported accusations made about the claimant. Under orthodox principles of defamation, where a person reports an accusation, they are potentially liable under the ‘repetition’ rule.

Held: Simon Brown LJ pointed out that repeating an allegation makes the person who repeats what has been said potentially as liable as if they made the allegation themselves, even if they are just reporting on what someone else says. The court observed, though, that neutral reporting of the fact that some allegations have been made “may be regarded as a form of responsible journalism in the public interest”

Facts: Singh is a scientific journalist who wrote an article about Chiropractic treatment, which is an alternative to normal medicine based treatment. Singh said it is rubbish an unhelpful in curing people in an article in the Guardian. It was widely read and he was able to back it up with some scientifically credible evidence

Held: The High Court said that for Singh to say there was no evidence that Chiropractic treatment would work was a statement of fact, not a statement of opinion. The Court of Appeal disagreed holding that it was a statement of opinion at which point the case collapsed. So whether it is a statement of fact or opinion is not always clear

Facts: When Baghdad was invaded back in 2003 an enterprising telegraph journalist went to the oil ministry and just happened to come across a whole load of documents that proved Mr Galloway (an MP who was seen as a wide supporter of Saddam Hussein, the previous dictator of Iraq) was in the pay of Saddam Hussein. Gleefully the telegraph published all these accusations. The documents were not true/genuine so Galloway sued the telegraph and won.

Held: The telegraph tried to rely on Reynolds defence (public interest defence) and said that they honestly and reasonably believed it to be true and it is clearly a matter of public interest that a British MP is being bribed by a foreign dictator. The Court of Appeal disagreed: in order to avail yourself of the Reynolds defence your belief must be reasonable, not honest, and you must take reasonable steps to verify the information

Facts: At a meeting of the Bolton Borough Council, the defendant made a speech accusing the plaintiff (claimant) of misleading the Management and Finance Committee of the Council in respect of a property-related dispute involving Bolton Corp and a property development company of which the plaintiff was chairman. The defendant called for the plaintiff's removal from the committee. The plaintiff brought an action for slander. The defendant did not seek to justify what he said but relied on defence of qualified privilege. The plaintiff alleged that the privilege was defeated by the defendant's malice

Held: The court found that the defendant honestly believed what he was saying to be true, but that he had shown ‘gross and unreasoning prejudice’ against the plaintiff. This was overruled by the court of appeal and the House of Lords.

⇒ Lord Diplock said to “destroy” qualified privilege “the desire to injure must be the dominant motive for the defamatory publication”. Diplock continues by saying that in order for someone to rely on the defence of qualified privilege you have to honestly believe what you are saying is true (not necessarily reasonably) i.e. you could say something fairly unreasonable and quite unlikely, but if you honestly believe it to be true then you can rely on the defence of qualified privilege

Facts: This concerned an article suggesting that the claimant's bank accounts were involved in funding terrorism, which was found to be defamatory.

Held: The Court of Appeal rejected the newspaper’s defence of qualified privilege. However, the House of Lords, focusing on the ‘public interest’ aspect of Reynold’s privilege, allowed the newspaper’s appeal and said that the defence was being applied too cautiously by Court of Appeal.

⇒ Journalists are under a professional duty to report on matters of public interest in receiving such information → where a publication is in the public interest, the duty and interest are taken to exist and, in the context of editorial judgement, the question then is whether responsible steps had been taken to gather and publish the information

Facts: A biography of Nail claimed that in his younger days he lived a rough lifestyle that included living off dog food and he brought a claim in defamation. The publishers made an offer to make amends.

Held: He insisted in pursuing the matter and although it was accepted what was said was defamatory and untrue (so won the case) his damages were mitigated. An offer to make amends is probably as good as it gets for the claimant because it avoids the court process – if the offer to make amends had been accepted nobody would have known Nail eats dog food!

Facts: In the case the House of Lords considered qualified privilege (see notes on this, here) for publication of defamatory statements in the public interest. The claimant argued that a story regarding the Taoiseach of Ireland implied that he had deliberately misled the Dail (i.e. lied to Parliament) and cabinet colleagues. The defendant, The Sunday Times, claimed that it reasonably and honestly believed that it was true and that it was in the public interest that the press should be able to report stories that it reasonably and honestly believed to be true even if they later turned out to be false (because if you had to absolutely prove everything written in the paper this would restrict freedom of speech over political debate). So the question for the House of Lords was whether the defence of qualified privilege should be extended to cover the mass media?

Held: Lord Nicholls said that qualified privilege should not be extended to “the publication of all such information” regardless of the circumstances. But the Reynold’s defence was established which could be raised where it was clear that the journalist had a duty to publish an allegation even if it turned out to be wrong.

⇒ In emphasising the importance of freedom of expression and in recognition of Article 10 (of the European Convention on Human Rights), their lordships held that interference with freedom of speech should be confined to what was necessary in the circumstances of the case → the court should be slow to conclude that a publication was not in the public interest

⇒ In the original case of Reynolds, Lord Nicholls set out 10 factors which the court should take into account when considering whether the defendant had acted reasonably and responsibly: these included factors such as the source of the information, the timing, the tone of the article, whether the claimant’s side of the issue was included etc. These are absent from the final Defamation Act 2013, although they were included in earlier versions of the bill

⇒ Now instead of a list of specific factors, sections 4(2) and 4(4) of the Defamation Act 2013 require the court to take ‘all the circumstances’ into account; and to make appropriate allowance for editorial judgement. This allows courts to look at the context and circumstances of the statement, rather than encouraging them to work their way through a set of specific questions (which were part of the Defamation Bill).

Facts: A publisher brought a claim against Hansard (i.e. the reports of what is said in Parliament). The publisher argued that although what the MP said had absolute privilege, under the repetition rule anybody who repeated a statement was liable in defamation (so they believed that Hansard's repetition of the MP's words were libellous).

Held: It was held that the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 s.1 extended the absolute privilege given to MPs to reports, papers, etc., ordered by parliament and to authenticated reports of parliamentary proceedings (i.e. Hansard)

Facts: A tenant (farmer) complained to the landlord that the worker he sent to carry out repairs had got drunk and broken into his cellar. The workman sued for the tenant’s defamatory statement to the landlord.

Held: The court held he (the tenant) could rely on qualified privilege because it was clearly important information to say it and had made the statement believing it to be true

⇒ “If fairly warranted by any reasonable occasion or exigency, and honestly made, such communications are protected for the common convenience and welfare of society; and the law has not restricted the right to make them within any narrow limits.” (Parke B).