OSCE media freedom representative welcomes highest UK court's decision backing investigative journalism
VIENNA, 16 October 2006 - The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, praised the decision of the Law Lords, Britain's highest court, to grant journalists the right to publish unproven allegations in cases of public interest, provided that they have done their best to establish the facts.
"I am confident that a very positive precedent has been set by the highest court. It offers protection to investigative journalism, and makes it possible to use confidential sources in responsible reporting on public interest issues," said Haraszti.
"This judgement is a step forward in the ongoing libel reform in the OSCE area. The ultimate goal of this process is to transform defamation from a crime into a civil-law offence, and do so in a way that protects both personality rights and the right of societies to know about issues of public importance."
Courts in Britain do not treat defamation as a crime; however, until now, in civil defamation disputes journalists had to fully prove their allegations, even in cases where the complainant was a public figure, and the issues were of public interest. This practice ran against the principle of the European Court of Human Rights, which holds that public figures have to endure harsher criticism for the sake of freedom of information in debating public issues.
"The change in defamation law was vital for the United Kingdom, which, in recent years, has been labelled as a 'libel tourism' destination. Many foreigners favoured bringing their libel charges to British courts whose practice was hostile towards journalists," added Haraszti.
In the unanimous judgement in the case of Jameel v. Wall Street Journal Europe, on 11 October the Law Lords held that the newspaper had the right to publish allegations about a foreign company whose bank accounts were monitored in an effort to trace whether they were misused - to finance terrorist groups.