Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation – like dignity and honour. In the English-speaking world, the law of defamation traditionally distinguishes between libel and slander. It is treated as a civil wrong, as a criminal offence, or both.
Hill v Church of Scientology of Toronto February 20, 1995- July 20, 1995. 2 S.C.R. 1130 was a libel case against the Church of Scientology, in which the Supreme Court of Canada interpreted Ontario's libel law in relation to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Online service provider law is a summary and case law tracking page for laws, legal decisions and issues relating to online service providers (OSPs), like the Wikipedia and Internet service providers, from the viewpoint of an OSP considering its liability and customer service issues. See Cyber law for broader coverage of the law of cyberspace.
A public interest defence is a defence in law that allows a defendant who disclosed classified or protected information to avoid criminal or civil liability by establishing that the public interest in disclosure of the information outweighs the public interest in nondisclosure.
Blasphemous libel was originally an offence under the common law of England. Today, it is an offence under the common law of Northern Ireland, but has been abolished in England and Wales, and repealed in Canada and New Zealand. It is a form of criminal libel that consists of the publication of material which exposes the Christian religion to scurrility, vilification, ridicule, and contempt, with material that must have the tendency to shock and outrage the feelings of Christians.
Fair comment is a legal term for a common law defense in defamation cases. It is referred to as honest comment in some countries.
A person who is found to have published a defamatory statement may evoke a defence of innocent dissemination, which absolves them of liability provided that they had no knowledge of the defamatory nature of the statement, and that their failure to detect the defamatory content was not due to negligence. The defence, sometimes also known as "mechanical distributor", is of concern to Internet Service Providers because of their potential liability for defamatory material posted by their subscribers.
Libel tourism is a term, first coined by Geoffrey Robertson, to describe forum shopping for libel suits. It particularly refers to the practice of pursuing a case in England and Wales, in preference to other jurisdictions, such as the United States, which provide more extensive defenses for those accused of making derogatory statements.
Modern libel and slander laws in many countries are originally descended from English defamation law. The history of defamation law in England is somewhat obscure; civil actions for damages seem to have been relatively frequent as far back as the Statute of Gloucester in the reign of Edward I (1272–1307). The law of libel emerged during the reign of James I (1603–1625) under Attorney General Edward Coke who started a series of libel prosecutions. Scholars frequently attribute strict English defamation law to James I's outlawing of duelling. From that time, both the criminal and civil remedies have been found in full operation.
The origins of the United States' defamation laws pre-date the American Revolution; one influential case in 1734 involved John Peter Zenger and established precedent that "The Truth" is an absolute defense against charges of libel. Though the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect freedom of the press, for most of the history of the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court failed to use it to rule on libel cases. This left libel laws, based upon the traditional "Common Law" of defamation inherited from the English legal system, mixed across the states. The 1964 case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, however, radically changed the nature of libel law in the United States by establishing that public officials could win a suit for libel only when they could prove the media outlet in question knew either that the information was wholly and patently false or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not". Later Supreme Court cases barred strict liability for libel and forbade libel claims for statements that are so ridiculous as to be obviously facetious. Recent cases have added precedent on defamation law and the Internet.
Canadian defamation law refers to defamation law as it stands in both common law and civil law jurisdictions in Canada. As with most Commonwealth jurisdictions, Canada follows English law on defamation issues.
Absolute privilege is a complete defence to an action for defamation in English law. If the defence of absolute privilege applies it is irrelevant that a defendant has acted with malice, knew information was false or acted solely to damage the reputation of the plaintiff. Absolute privilege can be deployed in a narrow range of cases. Statements made in judicial proceedings are protected as are communications between a solicitor and their client. The Bill of Rights of 1689 provides that proceedings of the Parliament of the United Kingdom are also covered by absolute privilege.
Grant v Torstar Corp, [2009] 3 S.C.R. 640, 2009 SCC 61, is a 2009 Supreme Court of Canada decision on the defences to the tort of defamation. The Supreme Court ruled that the law of defamation should give way to the rights of a party to speak on matters of public interest, provided the party exercises a certain level of responsibility in verifying the potentially defamatory facts. This decision recognizes a defence of responsible communication on matters of public interest.
The Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act is a 2010 federal statutory law in the United States that makes foreign libel judgments unenforceable in U.S. courts, unless either the foreign legislation applied offers at least as much protection as the U.S. First Amendment, or the defendant would have been found liable even if the case had been heard under U.S. law.
The Libel Act 1843, commonly known as Lord Campbell's Libel Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It enacted several important codifications of and modifications to the common law tort of libel.
The Law of Libel Amendment Act 1888 was an act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, clarifying and "amplifying" the defence of qualified privilege in cases involving the verbatim reproduction of court proceedings, the minutes of select committees, police notices or various other specifically recognised kinds of meetings, which had, in vaguer terms, been laid out in the Newspaper Libel and Registration Act 1881.
The County Court is a national civil court for England and Wales with unlimited financial jurisdiction.
The Evidence Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of New Zealand that codifies the laws of evidence. When enacted, the Act drew together the common law and statutory provisions relating to evidence into one comprehensive scheme, replacing most of the previous evidence law on the admissibility and use of evidence in court proceedings.
In Australia, defamation refers to the body of law that aims to protect individuals, groups, and entities from false or damaging statements that may cause harm to their reputation or standing in society. Australian defamation law is defined through a combination of common law and statutory law. Between 2014 and 2018, Australia earned the title of “world defamation capital”, recording 10 times as many libel claims as the UK on a per-capita basis.
Khumalo and Others v Holomisa is a landmark decision in the South African law of delict. It was decided by the Constitutional Court of South Africa on 21 May 2002. Handing down judgment for a unanimous court, Justice Kate O'Regan held that the existing common law of defamation is consistent with the Bill of Rights. The case emanated from a challenge by members of the press, who argued, in the main, that falsity should be an element of the delict of defamation in suits brought by public officials. However, the court rejected this argument, finding that existing common law does not impose an undue limitation on freedom of expression.
