Libel Action Research Articles

Richard Mitchell and Coal Mining Trade Unionism, 1858-1864

Histories of trade unionism have minimised the significance of the early years of the Coal Miners’ Association in south Yorkshire. For six years, beginning in 1858, Richard Mitchell was employed as the union’s first secretary and his term of office witnessed a succession of notable events, both locally and nationally, in which he took a significant part. These include the ‘checkweighman’ provision in the Mines Regulation and Inspection Act, 1860; the campaign for dependents’ compensation after the Edmund’s Main colliery catastrophe of 1862; the legal contest for John Normansell to be reinstated as checkweighman at Wharncliffe Silkstone colliery in 1863; and Mitchell’s contributions to the miners’ conferences and the Miners’ National Association from 1858 to 1864. His career ended abruptly in his flight in 1864 after he incurred the threat of ruinous legal costs over an action for criminal libel. Provoked by his own unguarded words, it led to a prosecution mounted by Robert Baxter, a solicitor and local coal-owner whom Mitchell had confronted several times in his career. This disastrous miscalculation alienated his associates, so terminally extinguishing his reputation. His undeserved neglect was reinforced by his marginalization in the official history of the union published a century later.

The Satirist and the Libeller: Peter Finnerty and the Satirist Magazine

Satire and libel have always been closely linked, but in the anxious political climate of the Romantic period, the relationship came under new pressure. This article examines the fraught connection between satire and libel through a case study: a quarrel between the Irish radical Peter Finnerty and George Manners, editor of the loyalist Satirist, or Monthly Meteor. In February 1809, Finnerty brought an action for libel against the magazine, known for its scurrilous articles. Surprisingly he won his case, but received a pittance in damages. The dispute points to the fluidity between the law courts and the press in this period; indeed, Manners considered satire a necessary supplement to legislative authority in correcting social deviance. With Manners’ scurrilous magazine an embarrassment to more respectable Tories, the two men’s argument sheds light on the uncomfortably close proximity of the figures of the ‘satirist’ and the ‘libeller’ in the early nineteenth century.

THE CRIME OF DEFAMATION – STILL DEFENSIBLE IN A MODERN CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY?

The crime of defamation, known as criminal libel in some jurisdictions, has (along with associated “insult laws”) been identified in the 2007 Declaration of Table Mountain of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers as the “greatest scourge of press freedom on the continent”. The Declaration proceeds to call for the abolition of such laws as a matter of urgency. This call has similarly been made in the Caribbean context by the International Press Institute and in the Commonwealth by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). Writing on behalf of CHRI, Cowell notes the “chilling effect” of defamation laws (along with the procedural laws and regulations governing libel actions), defining this phenomenon as “partially … self-censorship on the part of individuals but in general…a wider culture of fear and uncertainty within society that limits free speech”. On this basis, Cowell argues (for CHRI) that criminal defamation represents the “clearest threat to the exercise of freedom of speech withCommonwealth states” and that the “threat of criminal sanction can act as asignificant and widespread deterrent against all freedom of speech”, and that they should therefore be repealed. Similar calls forthe abolition of criminal defamation laws have issued from the Organization of American States and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and in response to a complaint relating to a criminal libel conviction emanating from the Philippines, the United Nations Human Rights Council stated that “States parties should consider the decriminalization of defamation … application of the criminal law [in the context of defamation] should only be countenanced in the most serious of cases and imprisonment is never an appropriate remedy”.Despite these calls for the abolition of the crime, it is noteworthy that the crime is retained in many jurisdictions, including European jurisdictions and Commonwealth countries. For example, every Commonwealth state in the English-speaking Caribbean (except Grenada) has specific criminal libel laws, Asian Commonwealth countries such as India, Singapore and Malaysia have corresponding criminaldefamation provisions, and so do African Commonwealth countries such as Botswana and South Africa. In addition, Commonwealth members such as Australia and Canada retain criminal defamation laws. An approach from the Commonwealth Press Union arguing for the abolition of the crime of defamation on the basis that such a crime threatens freedom of expression and is subject to abuse, being used in cases which do not involve the public interest, did not find favour with the Commonwealth Law ministers in their meeting in Accra in 2005.

Libel laws and the non-institutional press

ABSTRACT This paper will argue that non-institutional media such as bloggers should be accorded the same First Amendment protection as institutional media under libel laws. Supreme Court precedent supports making no distinction between the institutional and non-institutional media. The status of the plaintiff is relevant in libel actions, not the status of the defendant. Moreover, when bloggers disseminate information that is a matter of public concern, they are functioning as journalists. Many federal courts have adopted this functional approach when determining whether bloggers can be protected by shield laws. This paper argues that the same standard should apply to libel laws.

Judicialising history or historicisng law: reflections on Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt

In 2000, David Irving brought a libel action against Professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books focusing on allegedly defamatory allegations in her book Denying the Holocaust associating him with the Holocaust revisionist movement. The case concluded in April 2000 with Irving’s defeat. By focusing on Irving’s methodological technique, the defendants succeeded in establishing that Irving’s misrepresentations and falsifications were neither accidental nor careless but ideologically motivated. His character was presented and censured as one which manipulated and distorted in order to facilitate a racist agenda. 
 Presiding judge, Mr Justice Gray was keen not to pollute the exercise of justice by acting as a quasi-historian, nevertheless Irving sharpened the focus on the relationship between historians and courts. Can history migrate from the amphitheatre to the witness box and re-emerge with its integrity intact? Historians are increasingly called as expert witnesses and this has resulted in huge controversies, intra-historian strife and debates on experts’ ethics. Thus, despite this article’s mooring in a Holocaust context, it raises questions relevant to the much wider context of history and law, and as regards “public history”. Law and history will meet continuously during litigation. Judicial and historical understandings of evidence should not be either intuitively or automatically elided and even a Holocaust context should not conquer the quest for a mutually self-aware relationship. Without engaging in endless discussions concerning the nature of knowledge and the philosophy of history, judges require standards for assessing the weight of historical evidence to ensure “intellectual due process” and that, evidentially at least, legal conclusions are sound. How can historians best facilitate the legal process and how can lawyers avoid mistranslating historical work? A legally created standard (such as Mr Justice Gray attempted) for expert evidence appears attractive. Admissibility or reliability tests are options and open up issues such as bar-appointed experts and expert ethical codes. Ultimately, the quest is not to crowbar unwilling historians into roles as mere judicial handmaidens, but instead to recognise wider societal contributions of historians and to give due credit to the 'reasonable historian'. 
 When historians appear as expert witnesses, they are not 'doing history', they are communicating historical expertise in another forum. Such cross-pollinating communication or 'public history' is a process of translation. Undoubtedly, law is the dominant discipline in court and history is being instrumentalised. However, with due care, such interactions need not distort complex historical studies or restrict future historical research. Disciplinary faithfulness can be preserved by legal reliance on historical guild-standards. In this way, standards regarding intellectual rigour and methodological integrity are safeguarded and notions that there is one history for historians and another/lesser one for courts are avoided.

In Sullivan's Shadow: The Use and Abuse of Libel Law during the Long Civil Rights Struggle by Aimee Edmondson

Reviewed by: In Sullivan's Shadow: The Use and Abuse of Libel Law during the Long Civil Rights Struggle by Aimee Edmondson Fred Carroll In Sullivan's Shadow: The Use and Abuse of Libel Law during the Long Civil Rights Struggle. By Aimee Edmondson. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2019. Pp. xviii, 363. Paper, $27.95, ISBN 978-162534-409-0; cloth, $90.00, ISBN 978-1-62534-408-3.) Segregationists sued frequently for libel. They sued black and white people, editors and reporters, ministers and activists, longtime state residents and socalled outside agitators. They sued for articles written, advertisements published, and words spoken. They demanded retractions and compensation for what they characterized as unwarranted damage to their reputations. But in actuality, white government officials wielded libel law to protect white supremacy and waste the time and funds of those individuals and organizations that worked to dismantle segregation and end police brutality. Segregationists pursued these ends when the law was adjudicated in their favor but continued even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1964 in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that public officials must show "actual malice" to prove libel (p. 4). In In Sullivan's Shadow: The Use and Abuse of Libel Law During the Long Civil Rights Struggle, Aimee Edmondson recounts one lawsuit after another, mostly in the South but also in the North and the West, to illustrate how "these legal assaults constitute a clear historical pattern showing how white political leaders turned to libel law as a weapon for silencing all critics on the momentous issue of racial justice, not just news coverage by national and local media" (p. 2). Some cases are quite familiar to historians of journalism, First Amendment law, and the long civil rights movement. Others are less so. The strength of Edmondson's monograph, which artfully blends court documents, archival research, and secondary sources, rests in the sheer number of cases reviewed. Her numerous vignettes link local names and actions and consequences to "at least $300 million in libel actions" filed by government officials by 1964 (p. 101). Before the Sullivan decision, white public officials sued often because they usually won. They expected to find sympathetic judges and juries in their state courts. In 1950, John Henry McCray, the editor of a black weekly in South Carolina, dared to raise doubts about the conviction of a black man sentenced to death for raping a white teenage girl. McCray interviewed the man, who said the sex was consensual. He never published the girl's name. Even so, McCray was fined $3,000 and sentenced to three years' probation. Notoriously, he was later accused of violating his probation and sentenced to five weeks on a chain gang. He had pleaded guilty because his lawyers assumed he would not receive a fair trial. In 1955, a Florida state legislator sued a state NAACP official who suggested the politician was advancing the cause of communism by proposing to abolish public schools rather than integrate them. That accusation appeared in a telegram and a letter. The activist was ordered to pay $15,000. In 1961, veteran journalist Howard K. Smith was suspended and then fired by CBS for an hour-long report that took a critical look at how officials in Birmingham, Alabama, responded to civil rights demonstrations. Officials complained the report lacked balance. CBS settled the resulting lawsuit out of court for an undisclosed amount and issued an on-air apology. Even after Sullivan, government officials continued to file strategic lawsuits against public participation (known as SLAPPs). The trials, though, were now in [End Page 754] federal court, where judges applied the new standard. Regardless, libel suits continued to cost defendants time and money. Edmondson examines three suits filed in 1964 and 1965 by police officers in New York and New Jersey involved in shootings. Demonstrators protested with placards that bore the officers' names and badge numbers. Not until 1969 was it "widely understood" that "criticism of a police officer in his official capacity was now protected speech" (p. 263). Edmondson's research suggests that libel lawsuits were a more significant tactic in defending white supremacy, racial segregation, and police brutality than scholars...

The Trial of Convoy PQ17 and the Royal Navy in Post-War British Cultural Memory.

This article explores the 1970 case of Broome v. Cassell & Co. in which an elderly wartime naval officer was awarded unprecedented damages for defamation in David Irving's account of the sinking of wartime Allied convoy PQ17 in 1942. The article examines the discourses and images deployed in this landmark British libel action, as a means of analysing how cultural memories of convoy PQ17 and the wartime Royal Navy were shaped and transmitted in post-war Britain. It is argued here that the trial offers a prism through which to explore wider anxieties that the generation who fought the Second World War held during the late 1960s. It maps how contemporary generational tensions, fears of national decline, and concerns about distorted cultural representations of war in Britain were embedded into the trial. This libel case thus became invested with considerable cultural significance among an ageing community of wartime survivors who were intent upon safeguarding wider memories of 'their' war.

‘A certain false, malicious, scandalous and famous libel’: Sir Henry Morgan’s legal action against a London publisher of Alexandre Exquemelin, 1685

This research examines the surviving plea roll from Sir Henry Morgan’s 1685 libel action against London publisher Thomas Malthus, presenting what it reveals about the substance of the complaint in the context of contemporary English libel law and Morgan-related sources. Malthus and rival printer William Crooke had produced competing English translations of buccaneer Alexandre Exquemelin’s memoir of Morgan-led operations against the Spanish, which included passages Morgan objected to through his attorney. The document (in the UK National Archives) summarizes the form and resolution of the lawsuit in the Court of King’s Bench against Malthus, and offers insight into what Morgan’s attorney considered libellous; these points probably echo Morgan’s concerns about the edition printed by Crooke, who settled out of court. Though the truth of Exquemelin’s contested statements was never tested in court, the episode can be seen as marking the first step in an ongoing critical appraisal of the buccaneer-turned-author’s veracity.

Latvian Queer Kharms? Sex and Power in Rihards Bargais’ Gossip

In 2012 the Latvian poet Rihards Bargais published a book called Tenkas (‘Gossip’), a collection of small absurd narratives, inspired by the Russian writer Daniil Kharms, that describes his fellow writers, well-known Latvian personalities and himself. Many of the pieces have an explicitly sexual character; one of them even resulted in legal action for libel, a situation unique in Latvian contemporary literature. Crossing several boundaries of reality and fiction, private and public, as well as the allowed and the forbidden, Bargais confronts society using sexual imagery in his literary work.

Toward Normalization of Defamation Law: The U.K. Defamation Act of 2013 and the U.S. SPEECH Act of 2010 as Responses to the Issue of Libel Tourism

In the wake of several high-profile libel actions brought by U.S. celebrities and foreign businessmen in London because of more favorable defamation laws there, London was dubbed the “libel tourism capital of the world.” The U.S. response in 2010 was the passage of the SPEECH Act, preventing courts from enforcing libel judgments from foreign jurisdictions not providing the same level of protection as the United States. Similarly, in 2013 the United Kingdom responded to international and national criticism by passing the Defamation Act to address the loophole in its system that caused the abuse. Both acts have been criticized, the first for its aggressiveness, and the second for its conservative nature. This article examines the development of the law of defamation in the two jurisdictions and analyzes the content of both statutes, along with their criticisms, proposing international cooperation to address the issue of libel tourism.

Doping and Free Speech

This article looks at the problems of doping in professional cycling and the difficulties of the media in accurately reporting the problem. It examines the arguments against doping in sport generally and the specific problem which is raised by professional cycling. The question of public interest in fairly conducted professional sport is examined. This is set against English libel law and the problems which the media have in reporting and analysing drug taking by professional cyclists. The article concentrates on the libel action brought by the leading U.S. cyclist and multiple Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong against the Sunday Times. The structure of English libel law and historical emphasis on reputation outweighing free speech is examined, as are modern developments in English libel law prompted by the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly ‘Reynolds privilege’. The question is raised as to whether this development gives more scope to report individual doping cases provided that they comply with the standards of ‘responsible journalism.’

Libel tourism in the context of press freedom

The phrase ‘libel tourism’ appeared for the first time in 1990, when a Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger sued American author Wendy Leigh for his unauthorized biography in an English court [Rayner 2010; Sanchez 2011]. A number of recent cases included wealthy libel tourists such as Nicole Kidman, David Hasselhoff, Roman Polanski, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Britney Spears, Tiger Woods and Cameron Diaz. Since 2005, the number of libel actions in the High Court has doubled, and in 2009, there were 219 defamation cases issued; 34 of them were identified as having a “foreign connection” [Ministry of Justice, Report of the Libel Working Group]. In a short time, the widespread opinion has appeared that London has become the “Libel Capital of the World” [London “The Times”, Be Reasonable; Carvajal, Britain, a Destination for ‘Libel Tourism’]. Through an extensive review of relevant case law and studies I would like to draw attention to the problem of libel tourism which creates a chilling effect on press freedom.

Courts Martial and Libel: A Waterloo Officer’s Military Career and the Contemporary Press

Captain John Montmorency Tucker, a veteran of the Peninsular Wars and Waterloo, was twice court martialled. After the first court martial in 1815, he was sentenced to be discharged, but this was mitigated to no punishment and the prosecutor was reprimanded. The trial was reported by the Military Register , which publicly criticized the prosecutor, and a libel action against the editor soon followed. After the second court martial in 1822, Tucker was sentenced to be reprimanded, but the king, in view of the first court martial, judged him unfit for service, and he was ordered to sell his commission. The official army report of this court martial published the charges, verdict, sentence, and change of sentence with no commentary. This article examines why the cases were reported differently and the significance of the libel charge against the Military Register .

Kirke og menighed i Grundtvigs teologi og kirkepolitik 1806-61

Kirke og menighed i Grundtvigs teologi og kirkepolitik 1806-61

Standing up for science: The antivivisection movement and how to stand up to it.

Animal research has been and remains crucial to the development of modern medicine. The reasons for ongoing research are manifold from finding ways to treat cancer to understanding the mechanisms behind neurodegeneration to developing new vaccines against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Nearly all of us benefit from medical treatments made possible through animal research, and with so much at stake, it is important that scientists make the case for the importance of using animals in research. With animal rights extremism at an all‐time low, there has never been a better time for scientists to overcome their reluctance to talk about the benefits of their work. Sadly, polls show that opposition to animal research among young people, for example in the UK and USA, is significantly higher than among those aged over 65 [1], [2]. In my view, this is in part because of the large amount of misinformation propagated across the Internet by opponents of animal research—the “antivivisection” (AV) movement. Moreover, the past decades have seen bouts of intense activism—including harassment, threats and violence directed towards scientists—aimed at shutting down animal research. During the same period, the scientific community have worked diligently to replace, refine and reduce the use of animals in research (http://www.nc3rs.org.uk), making much progress; however, these efforts have not been sufficient to satisfy the passions of some activists. Part of the problem is that scientists rarely engage with those who are opposed to animal research, which can leave them detached from the need to justify or explain their work. This lack of communication also creates an information vacuum in the public sphere about the need to use animals. In a recent poll in the UK, only 31% of respondents felt “fairly well informed […] about science and scientific research/development” [2]. …

Toward Reform of Defamation Law in the British Caribbean: Efforts at Reform in the United Kingdom and Jamaica

The ongoing review of defamation laws by the Jamaican government has sharpened the focus on the need to identify appropriate standards for public officials in libel actions in light of the growing recognition of a need for transparency. Conventional wisdom speaks to the indispensable role of the media to inform the public of government activities to facilitate the democratic process. Jamaica's unique history of colonialism, underdevelopment and poverty has led to a political system based on pork barrel economics – inimical to government transparency so necessary in a democracy. This article explores how British, Caribbean and U.S. jurisdictions have sought to manage the paradigm shift between the right to reputation and the need to ensure responsible and accountable governance. The aim is to identify a path of reform for Caribbean defamation law that ensures greater public official accountability and better incorporates twenty-first century notions of democracy.

Guardians of the Public Sphere? Political Scandal and the Press, 1979-97

The political scandals that beset the Conservative Party during the 1980s and 1990s constitute a valuable lens for examining two interrelated areas of study: the changing power relationship between government and press, and the changing interface between public and private in contemporary discourse. Close discursive analysis of the press coverage of these scandals--and of the libel actions that resulted from them--highlights the extent to which the Thatcher administration and the tabloid press propagated a shared moral discourse, founded on the repudiation of 'permissiveness', and a return to the ideal of the patriarchal nuclear family. This alliance transformed the way in which the Conservative message was communicated, disseminated, and indeed constituted, yet ultimately proved to be a double-edged sword. By catalysing the disintegration of the boundary between public and private in political life, and investing the press with the power to mould and configure public expectations of sexual morality, Thatcher laid the groundwork for the eventual fall of the Major administration, in the wake of a long series of financial and sexual scandals. As such, this article offers insights into a hitherto unexamined aspect of Thatcher's legacy, and the unprecedented influence of the press in late twentieth-century politics.

SHAW'S LONDON THEN AND NOW

SHAW'S LONDON THEN AND NOW

Doctors in Court, Honour, and Professional Ethics: Two Scandals in Imperial Germany

Comparing two public medical affairs which involved disciplinary proceedings and libel actions, one from Bavaria and one from Prussia, this article analyzes the dynamics behind legal conflicts over doctors' professional ethics in Imperial Germany. In both the case of Dr Maurice Hutzler, who committed suicide after conflicts with senior colleagues at the Gisela Children's Hospital and a sentence of the court of honour of the Munich Medical District Society, and the Berlin "patient trade" affair, in which the medical professors Ernst von Leyden, Hermann Senator, Karl Anton Ewald and Carl Posner were accused of having made payments to middlemen for bringing them lucrative private patients, notions of personal and professional honour played a central role. The Munich case highlighted shortcomings of the Bavarian medical court of honour system, which was less developed than its Prussian counterpart. The analysis of the two cases suggests that the ethics of medical practice in early twentieth-century Germany should be viewed as part of a culture of honour.

The human rights case for libel law reforms in the Commonwealth Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)

The state of defamation laws within the Commonwealth poses a significant threat to the right to freedom of speech, expression and information. Within the United Kingdom there is a growing movement for the reform of the procedural aspects of libel law following several high profile cases that have brought the public’s attention to a number of problems within existing libel law.1 In Jamaica, criminal defamation laws are facing reform and the recommendations for change are continuing to make their way through the legislative process. The pernicious effects of libel actions are amplified within small jurisdictions and there is a serious danger that the crippling penalties on defendants as a result of such actions ‘chill’ free speech and stifle dissent.2 The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) an independent NGO working for Human Rights in the Commonwealth, presented a paper to the 2010 Meeting of Law Ministers and Attorneys General of Small Commonwealth Jurisdictions (LMSCJ) on the human rights case for libel law reform in small jurisdictions.3 This is a summary of the research and the paper presented at the LMSCJ meeting. The basic findings were that the presence of criminal defamation laws on the statute books and procedural aspects of civil defamations laws posed a threat to the realisation of freedom of speech and CHRI put a series of recommendations to the delegates calling for reform in these areas. 1 Significant concern surrounded the judgment in this case and the question of costs MGN Limited v the United Kingdom – 39401/04 [2011] ECHR 66 (18 January 2011). 2Guardian editorial, ‘Press freedom: The Singapore grip’ The Guardian (17 November 2010) <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/17/press-freedom-singapore-grip> 3Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, ‘Overview of Media Freedom and Defamation: The Human Rights case for Libel Law Reforms in the Commonwealth’ (LMSCJ Paper, Commonwealth, Secretariat, Marlborough House, London). This paper was produced at the London officer of CHRI – written by Frederick Cowell with research assistance from Catherine Fischl, Alix Langrounat and Sirintiya Robberts.