Legislative Scrutiny: Defamation Bill - Human Rights Joint Committee

Human Rights Joint Committee - Seventh Report
Legislative Scrutiny: Defamation Bill

Here you can browse the report together with the Proceedings of the Committee. The published report was ordered by the House of Lords and the House of Commons to be printed 4 December 2012.

CONTENTS

The information provided by the Government

2 Significant Human Rights issues raised by the Bill

Clause 4—Responsible publication in the public interest

The need for a new public interest defence

An alternative formulation

Lord Lester's proposal: reasonable belief that the publication was in the public interest

Clause 5—Operators of Websites

The threshold for a Clause 5 notice: defamatory or unlawful

Regulations and Procedure

Universities and colleges

Clause 8—Single Publication Rule

Corporate claimants

3 Wider issues raised by defamation reform

Costs, funding and access to justice

Relationship between qualified privilege and Article 8 ECHR

Conclusions and recommendations

Formal Minutes

Declaration of Lords' Interests

List of written evidence

List of written evidence published on the Internet

Written evidence

List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament