Tipping the balance

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s speech, ‘Restoring Civil Liberties’, delivered before an audience of libel reform hopefuls in January, repeated an assertion that has become something of a cliché in discussions of England’s libel laws. He said: “It is a farce—and an international embarrassment—that the American Congress has felt it necessary to legislate to protect their citizens from our libel laws.”

Not so. On the international stage—that is, around the world, not just in America—our libel laws are highly regarded. Indeed they provide the legal model for a majority of common law countries. Constitutionally and philosophically, we are of a different make up from the US. Inscribed in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a presumption in favour of freedom of expression. This is alien to our own (and Europe’s) model which strikes a fine balance between the right to reputation in Art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)