Libel Reform Bill is Published

It's taken a long time, folks, but it's getting there.

Text of an e-mail I received today:

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Dear Friends

The Government has published the Defamation Bill that was announced in last week's Queen's Speech. You can read the Bill, and see coverage and reaction to it and the Queen's Speech, at http://www.libelreform.org/news/524-libel-reform-is-in-the-queens-speech

The libel reform campaign, nearly 100 organisations and 60,000 of you have been calling for this since December 2009. Congratulations to everyone on this momentous stage!

Now we need to examine the details of the Bill and work to ensure the reforms will do away with unwarranted chilling, bullying effects of the current laws. Over the coming months, we need to continue to fight for:

• a public interest defence so people can defend themselves unless the claimant can show they have been malicious or reckless.
• a strong test of harm that strikes out claims unless the claimant can demonstrate serious and substantial harm and they have a real prospect of vindication.
• a restriction on corporations' ability to use the libel laws to silence criticism.
• provisions for online hosts and intermediaries, who are not authors nor traditional publishers.

We will be in touch very soon to ask for your help with this. Thank you again for your support so far.

Síle and Mike

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History.

www.libelreform.org