RADICAL REFORM OR A MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

Will the Defamation Bill provide the much needed safeguards to protect robust debate in the UK?

 

Chair: The Rt Hon. John Whittingdale M.P., Chairman, House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport

 

Panel:

Simon Singh, Author, Journalist and Producer

Mark Stephens, Partner, Finers, Stephens, Innocent.

Professor Eric Barendt, Goodman Professor of Media Law, University College London.

Alastair Brett, Director, Early Resolution

 

Start: 6:00 for 6.15pm

Date: 12th July, 2011

Location: The Attlee Suite, Portcullis House, House of Commons, London SW1A 1AA

Entrance: Free but please confirm your place in advance by emailing Sam at sam_keegan@hotmail.com  

 

Freedom of speech is a vital cornerstone of our democracy. As the storm over superinjunctions rages on, we will examine whether the law of defamation in the UK strikes the right balance between protection of freedom of speech on one hand and protection of reputation on the other. On the 15^th March 2011, the Government published the Defamation Bill containing proposals for reform. Will the proposed legislation provide the much needed safeguards to protect robust scientific and academic debate? Will the failure to include proposals to lower large legal costs ensure that the ‘chilling effect’ will continue? Will libel tourism actually be curtailed? Or, has the Bill gone too far the other way in favour of freedom of expression?

 

 

The Rt. Hon John Whittingdale M.P., Chairman, House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport.

 

John Whittingdale has been a Member of Parliament since 1992. Having worked in the Conservative Research Department, he was appointed Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 1984, serving three successive Secretaries of State until 1987. In 1989, he was appointed Political Secretary to the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. He continued in that role until Margaret Thatcher left office in 1990 and he was awarded the OBE in her resignation honours list. John continued to work as Private Secretary to Margaret Thatcher until 1992, when he was elected Member of Parliament for South Colchester and Maldon. He served as a member of the House of Commons Select Committee on Health from 1993 to 1997 and was also Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Education and Employment between 1994 and 1996. After the 2001 General Election, John was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and in July, 2002 Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. In July 2005 he became Chairman of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. In 2010, John became Member of Parliament for the Maldon constituency and was re-appointed as the Chairman of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

 

Mark Stephens, Partner, Finers, Stephens, Innocent

 

Specialising in Human Rights, defamation, privacy, media, art and cultural property, data protection and freedom of information and intellectual property, Mark Stephens has undertaken some of the highest profile cases in the country and abroad. He is currently representing Julian Assange in his extradition proceedings. Mark is also extremely active in many other areas having been appointed by the Foreign Secretary to the FCO Free Expression advisory board and the Lord Chancellor to be a Champion for the Community Legal Service. Mark has created a niche in international comparative media law and regulation.  Mark chairs a number of bodies including the Contemporary Art Society, the University of East London, the Management Committee of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy Wolfson College, Oxford Centre for Socio Legal Studies and sits on the board as a Trustee of Index of Censorship, the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, Commonwealth Lawyers Association and Human Rights Council of the International Bar Association.

 

 Professor Eric Barendt, Goodman Professor of Media Law, University College London.

 

Eric Barendt has been Goodman Professor of Media Law at University College London since 1990; it was the first chair in media law in the United Kingdom. Previously he had been teaching at St. Catherine's College, Oxford from 1971. He has held Visiting Professorships at Rome (1991), Siena (1996), Paris II (1999), Melbourne (2003) and Auckland (2007). He was principal editor of the Yearbook of Copyright and Media Law (Oxford University Press) from 1995 to 2001/2, and will be an editor of a new Media and Communications Law Review to be published by Hart from 2009. He has given informal advice, and formal evidence, to the House of Commons Culture, Media, and Sport Committee on Privacy and Media Intrusion (2003), and he gave evidence to the Joint Committee of the House of Lords and House of Commons on the Draft Communications Bill (2002) Eric Barendt's principal research has been concerned with freedom of speech/expression and related constitutional and legal questions. He has also written a book on constitutional law for the prestigious Clarendon Law series published by Oxford University Press (1998), which has also published his study of the empirical impact of libel law on the media, written with three other authors (1997). He has taken a particular interest in the relationship of libel and privacy law to freedom of speech in both English and European Convention law.

 

Simon Singh, Author, Journalist, Producer. 

 

Simon Singh is an author, journalist and producer, specialising in science and mathematics. Simon studied physics at Imperial College before completing a PhD in particle physics at Cambridge University and at CERN, Geneva. In 1990 he joined the BBC’s Science Department, where he produced and directed programmes such as Tomorrow’s World and Horizon. He has written four books which include Fermat’s Last Theorem, The Code Book, Big Bang and Trick or Treatment?  Over the last few years, he has been working closely with CASE, Sense About Science and the Science Media Centre. After publishing an article entitled Beware the Spinal Trap, a critique of chiropractic practice in April 2008, Simon was sued by the British Chiropractic Association in a libel case that lasted two years and which he eventually won. Along the way, Simon became closely involved with the Libel Reform Campaign, and he continues to lobby for a fairer libel law.

 

Alastair Brett, Director, Early Resolution

 

Alastair Brett is a Media Law Consultant and Director of Early Resolution (CIC), a non-profit making company helping litigants to resolve libel actions quickly, fairly and cheaply.  He pioneered rights of audience for solicitors in the mid 1980s and has spent thirty three years working in the world of media law at The Times and Sunday Times.  He set up the Fleet Street Lawyers Society in 1987 and has been at the forefront of libel reform over the last 20 years.  In 2009, he chaired a Civil Legal Aid Fund group for Lord Justice Jackson and has set up Early Resolution with Sir Charles Gray, the former High Court Judge.