Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act to amend the Law respecting defamatory Words and Libel. |
---|---|
Citation | 6 & 7 Vict. c. 96 |
Territorial extent | England and Wales and Ireland [2] |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 24 August 1843 |
Commencement | 1 November 1843 [3] |
Other legislation | |
Amended by | |
Status: Amended | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Text of the Libel Act 1843 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. |
The Libel Act 1843, commonly known as Lord Campbell's Libel Act, [4] 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.
This Act was repealed for the Republic of Ireland by section 4 of, [5] and Part 2 of Schedule 1 to, [6] the Defamation Act, 1961.
The preamble was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1891.
This section was repealed by the Schedule to the Larceny Act 1916.
This section formerly provided:
If any person shall maliciously publish any defamatory libel, knowing the same to be false, every such person, being convicted thereof, shall be liable to be imprisoned in the common gaol or house of correction for any term not exceeding two years, and to pay such fine as the court shall award. [7]
This section was repealed for England and Wales and Northern Ireland by section 178 of, [8] and Part 2 of Schedule 23, [9] to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
This section was replaced for the Republic of Ireland by section 12 of the Defamation Act, 1961. [10]
Alternative verdict
See Boaler v R (1888) 21 QBD 284, (1888) 16 Cox 488, (1888) 4 TLR 565
This section formerly provided:
If any person shall maliciously publish any defamatory libel, every such person, being convicted thereof, shall be liable to fine or imprisonment or both, as the court may award, such imprisonment not to exceed the term of one year. [11]
This section did not create or define an offence. It provided the penalty for the existing common law offence of defamatory libel. [12]
This section was repealed for England and Wales and Northern Ireland by section 178 of, [8] and Part 2 of Schedule 23, [9] to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The repeal of this section was consequential on the abolition of the common law offence of defamatory libel by section 73(b) of that Act. [13]
This section was replaced for the Republic of Ireland by section 11 of the Defamation Act, 1961. [14]
This section allowed the defendant to prove the truth of a libel as a valid defence in criminal proceedings, but only if it also be demonstrated that publication of the libel was to the "Public Benefit". [15] Proving the statement's truth had previously been allowed only in civil libel defences inasmuch as the criminal offence against the public at large was considered to be provoking a breach of peace via printing malicious statements rather than the defamation per se; the truth or falsity of the statement had therefore been considered irrelevant in criminal proceedings before the Act.
This section was repealed for England and Wales and Northern Ireland by section 178 of, [8] and Part 2 of Schedule 23, [9] to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
This section was replaced for the Republic of Ireland by section 6 of the Defamation Act, 1961. [16]
This section did not apply to seditious libel. [17]
In England and Wales and Northern Ireland, this section now reads:
Whensoever [in Northern Ireland], upon the trial of any indictment or information for the publication of a [blasphemous] libel, under the plea of not guilty, evidence shall have been given which shall establish a presumptive case of publication against the defendant by the act of any other person by his authority, it shall be competent to such defendant to prove that such publication was made without his authority, consent, or knowledge, and that the said publication did not arise from want of due care or caution on his part.
The words in square brackets were inserted by section 177 of, and paragraph 66 of Schedule 21 to, the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. [18]
This section was replaced for the Republic of Ireland by section 7 of the Defamation Act, 1961. [19]
This section, in its original form, applied to a prosecution for blasphemous libel. [20]
This section permitted a defendant who had been charged by a private prosecutor to recover the costs of his legal defence if found not guilty. [21]
This section was repealed by the Schedule to the Costs in Criminal Cases Act 1908.
Oscar Wilde was bankrupted under this provision when he abandoned his libel prosecution against Lord Queensberry and was ordered to reimburse him for the considerable expenses Queensberry had incurred for legal representation and private detectives.
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.
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.
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Criminal libel is a legal term, of English origin, which may be used with one of two distinct meanings, in those common law jurisdictions where it is still used.
Seditious libel is a criminal offence under common law of printing written material with seditious purpose – that is, the purpose of bringing contempt upon a political authority. It remains an offence in Canada but has been abolished in England and Wales.
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Defamatory libel was originally an offence under the common law of England. It was established in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland. It was or is a form of criminal libel, a term with which it is synonymous.
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.
The Slander of Women Act 1891 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
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public benefit.
libel act 1843.