Did you know...
• Regional newspapers will not undertake any investigation they fear may attract a libel writ and will not fight a libel case even if what they printed was true?
• As the money drains out of the national media, they may soon follow suit.
• The libel law is meant to protect men and women of good reputation but in recent times the judiciary has opened its doors to Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi billionaire, who paid $225m to settle charges brought by the US authorities for his part in the collapse of the corrupt Bank of Commerce and Credit International, and to Roman Polanski, who is living in exile in France to escape attempts by the US authorities to extradite him for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old.
• Uniquely in the law of the Anglo-Saxon democracies, the burden of proof in the libel court lies on the defendant.
• Almost uniquely in the law of the Anglo-Saxon democracies, damages in the English libel courts need have no relation to actual damages suffered.
• Simple libel cases can cost millions of pounds to fight and lawyers have every incentive to drag them out as they can claim 100% success fees.
• The United Nations Human Rights Committee says that English libel law was so biased it discouraged writers discussing matters of public interest.
• British solicitors encourage oligarchs and plutocrats from all over the world to sue foreign publications in London, and the judiciary does nothing to stop them.
• Obozrevatel (Observer), a Ukraine-based internet news site, was sued by the richest Ukrainian oligarch even though its number of English readers must be negligible as Obozrevatel only publishes in Ukrainian.
• The human rights group Global Witness was threatened with libel for exposing corrupt central African dictators, as were London solicitors who publicised the plight of west African victims of a chemical spill.
• One of the first acts of President Obama will be sign into law the libel tourism bill, which will declare the decisions of English libel judges unenforceable in the United States.
• Isn’t it about time that they were unenforceable in England too?
The Convention on Modern Liberty will begin in London on Saturday 28 February at 9.45am at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way London WC1. Other sessions, with live screenings from London, will take place at Trinity Centre, Trinity Rd, Bristol; Student Council Chamber, Oxford Road, Manchester University; Cambridge Union, Bridge Street, Cambridge; Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Strathclyde, Montrose Street, Glasgow; Peter Froggatt Centre, Queen’s University, Belfast. The venue in Cardiff is yet to be confirmed.
For information and to buy tickets at £35 (concession £20), please visit:
modernliberty.net
