This week’s confirmation that legislation will be brought forward in the autumn to reform Ireland’s defamation law is welcome, even if the proposed changes do not go as far as some would have hoped. If passed, the Defamation (Amendment) Bill, 2024 will abolish juries for High Court actions, introduce protections against Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (Slapp) cases, and reduce legal costs for all involved.
The result will be to lessen the current chilling effect on press freedom, which leaves Ireland an outlier among modern democracies. The new legislation will also make it less costly for plaintiffs to obtain the identity of people who post defamatory content online, and introduces a new defence for retailers subjected to defamation claims for challenging people on whether or not they have paid for goods.
The Bill as a whole goes some considerable way towards addressing the unacceptable restrictions on journalistic inquiry which have been the subject of criticism from the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission. The onerous burden placed on media organisations by the current law prevents them from doing their work, protecting the rich and powerful from legitimate investigation in the public interest.
Although the replacement of juries with judges should reduce the number of excessively high awards, it is regrettable that the Government has not seen fit to introduce a “serious harm test” which would discourage exaggerated or vexatious claims. While it is right and proper that the State should meet its constitutional duty to protect the good name of every citizen from unjust attack, the Government appears to have taken an unduly conservative interpretation of that obligation in this particular instance.
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Nevertheless, the Bill, if passed, will bring Ireland into line with recent European legislation and deliver much-needed reform to what is currently a slow, costly and manifestly unfair system that hinders the flow of information that every democratic society needs.
There is an expectation that the legislation can be enacted by Christmas, although some key elements still need to be amended or refined at committee stage. That means, of course, that its passage is dependent on a general election not being called before the end of the year. Taoiseach Simon Harris and his ministerial colleagues remain adamant that this Government will run its full term. Those assurances are taken at face value in some quarters, but viewed with scepticism in many others. One reason offered by ministers for not calling an election is that they are intent on completing their legislative programme. A test of the sincerity of that proposition will be whether this important reform is in fact carried through.