Introduction to UK Defamation Law

Dr Matthew Collins QC introduces the UK's "imperfect" defamation laws, which he memorably compares to Frankenstein's monster. Collins goes on to describe how the complexity of defamation law can be exploited by both claimants and publishers. He notes that defamation cases are the juridical stage upon which important questions of public policy are played out and the limits of freedom of expression tested.

Dr Matthew Collins QC is an Australian barrister and academic. He is also the author of The Law of Defamation and the Internet (Oxford University Press, 2001, 2005, 2010).

[leeanneart]

Dr Collins it is unfathomable to me that anyone can seriously present that Defamation Law assists us to "balance freedom of expression with the right to reputation". Your intro discusses the publishers right and the right to inform - make public - information about a reputation. Reputation is not an immortal soul separate from ones actions and separate from the truth and consequence of these same actions regardless of the Shakespearian quote. Is one immune from responsibility for one's actions because the threat of defamation means the ability to "hide" behind a law that is inherently imbalanced and punitively based? You state "Defending..(a defamation matter)...on principle is irrational" yes, it bloody well is because the law is imbalanced. It is also unavoidable when faced with the prospect that if truth goes undefended a lie will stand. There are ranges to what this might mean – what level of truth vs lie are we discussing? I cannot go into the specifics for my own matter but it should be compelling enough to note for any thinking person to imagine allowing themselves to be brandished a disgraceful intentional liar and pay up for that privilege instead of defending truth.
It very well may be irrational but it is also unavoidable because Defamation law has built in entrapments that favour if not encourage an opportunistic claimant. Defamation claimants are permitted to make demands to extort money from defendants to make the suit and threatened future damaging claims to go away. It is a rort. Defamation claimants upon making a claim they are defamed, have been defamed. You upon being sued by a claimant have defamed that claimant. Most people in Australia are unaware of the inherent failures in this law...if you tell the truth and are able to substantially defend and prove it then you will be successful...(statement from an unnamed QC). This is nonsense of course because claimants set the rules, as you are aware, they get to set worsen, distort and magnify the claim first by the extortion threats and then via the "imputation" merry-go-round - by the time you are at that stage you have already entered down the rabbit hole.
The situation for a defendant, whatever the legal profession wishes it to be dressed up to be, is do you cave in to extortion or defend truth? Apparently because truth is not actionable (it is), because truth can be shown to exist early on and is demonstrable to even the “ordinary and reasonable” person you decide to defend truth. Of course in reality truth is actionable because the claimant just denounces it as a lie that further imputes their “immortal soul”/reputation, without demonstrating how, and instead uses truth to constitute additional damage. Then when it gets to trial you see your life squeezed and compressed into an unreality constructed by a system out of touch, you encompass no real space in this unreality and time unrelentingly distorts or rolls backwards. In Australia Defamation law is not just the tool of the powerful seeking better press but is easily used by the wealthy to protect their reputation from their own deeds by threatening action on those with lesser means. Do you apply reasonable trust in logic and defend truth? Not in the face of the Australian legal system if you want to survive, which is unjust. Is it the smart thing to instead live, as a claimant would have you do, depicted a liar, or is this too unjust and frankly too repugnant to accept? For whom is this law written and whom does it protect and do we actually need it, are the smart questions, and the answers are in its origins. The reality is defamation law is a harmful anachronism and if we claim to live in an era of advanced social justice it must be removed – reforms as you state merely continue to reproduce over and over what I can attest truly is a “Frankenstien’s monster”. Lee-Anne