To put it mildly, this is not a good time for politicians to be seen doing favours for media proprietors. Yet this is inevitably how the upcoming debate on libel reform - expected to be kicked off with a bill in the Queen’s speech in May - is going to look. No matter that, in the web age, almost everyone is potentially a publisher and thus at risk of libel proceedings, the most obvious winners from reform will be owners of sensational newspapers.

However if MPs are too nervous to take this up, there’s a simpler route to reform. Last week the Alternative Libel Project, set up by the English PEN and Index on Censorship, proposed a set of procedural measures which it said could remove the fear from libel litigation. The idea is that outcomes can be determined by what is right and not by dread of financial ruin.

The 32-page report is a joy to read in full - not something that can be said about some literature concerning civil litigation - but in summary it proposes:

  • Procedural measures to drive parties towards alternative dispute resolution (ADR) with costs sanctions for those who fail to do so and
  • Early neutral evaluation (ENE) hearings to determine the likely outcome of a case, to steer parties towards a mediated settlement or at least to narrow the points of dispute.

There are also proposals on costs, especially to reduce the risk to parties of limited means. ‘There is no good reason why a libel trial should ever cost more than a home,’ the report says.

While the authors stress that procedural changes need to be made alongside reforms to the substantive law of defamation, most of the project’s recommendations are a matter of rule changes and judicial action. They could thus be implemented quickly.

Of course there’s still the argument that this will prove good news for the tabloids. No doubt someone will suggest that we wait to see what emerges from the Leveson inquiry into press standards before deciding whether they are worthy beneficiaries of reform. That would be a mistake. In his foreword to the Alternative Libel Project report, Sir Stephen Sedley, chair of the advisory committee, says that one size of libel law must fit all.

‘The claimant may be a decent individual whose reputation has been unjustifiably wrecked, or a bully trying to suppress legitimate criticism: the defendant may be a wealthy organisation prepared to trample on reputation for profit, or a courageous writer who has offended someone powerful.’

Reforms must apply equally to the worthy as to the unworthy. In Tom Stoppard’s 1978 play Night and Day, the idealistic hero defends junk journalism as ‘evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right - that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins’. Quite.

Michael Cross is Gazette news editor

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