Tag Archives: Libel

From top: Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan, Paula Mullooly, Head of Legal Affairs RTÉ; Press Ombudsman Peter Feeney

This morning.

Royal Irish Academy, Dawson Street, Dublin 2.

Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan speaking at the Reform of Defamation Law Symposium.

Mr Flanagan told the symposium.:

“Defamation law in Ireland essentially seeks to balance three different rights which are protected under both our Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to freedom of expression, the right to protection of good name and reputation, and the right of access to justice.

We might perhaps add a value: that of promoting the importance of truth in public comment and debate, as far as that is reasonably possible, while also recognising and remembering the vital role in a democracy played by an independent media.

I expect the defamation review to be completed shortly, with options for reform presented before end of March 2020.”

Minister pledges to reform defamation law in 2020 (Law Society Gazette)

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

OToolee

Fintan O’Toole writes in today’s Irish Times about why he feels libel actions taken by columnists should be an “absolute last resort”.

He tells how the Sunday Times, in 2010, reported that he drove home from an Irish Congress of Trade Unions rally in his series 5 BMW, therefore depicting him as something of a hypocrite.

Only he doesn’t have a series 5 BMV, or any other kind of car, because he cannot drive.

He writes:

I am a national newspaper columnist. I occupy a position of enormous privilege. I’m allowed to take part in what we might call the semi-official national discourse. I’m allowed to be robustly critical of all sorts of people. I’m allowed to enrage some of those people and (though I don’t set out to do so) to upset others. I’m given those freedoms because there is a working assumption that free and open and robust debate is not just permissible in, but essential to, a democracy.
…
So instead of hiring a lawyer and suing the Sunday Times, I talked to the paper’s Irish editor. He agreed pretty quickly that the article was inaccurate and indefensible. It was taken off the paper’s website and a retraction was published the following week. And that was the end of it.
…
..there’s a price to be paid for the considerable privilege of being granted an especially loud voice in the national conversation. With the megaphone comes a duty to protect freedom of expression and a vested interest in keeping it as open as possible.

A columnist’s job confers some privileges, and obligations (Irish Times)

Gareth Chaney/Photocall Ireland