Even halfway around the world, Britain's libel laws have the power to silence dissent. English science writer Simon Singh discovered this when he was interviewed by an Australian journalist about a book he had co-written, Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. The journalist went off to write a story about homeopathy, only to have the newspaper's lawyers kill it before publication. They were worried about being charged with defamation in London, almost 20,000 kilometres away.
London's reputation as a centre for libel claims – in local slang, it's “the town called sue” – has become so dire, according to law-reform advocates, that it poses a real threat to scientific, academic and press freedom. “Libel tourism” refers to court cases tried in London even if none of the litigants, or even the publication, is based here.
Critics of Britain's moth-eaten libel laws like to cite the examples as if they are reading from a novel by Franz Kafka: A Danish radiologist speaks at a conference in Oxford and is sued by a U.S. company; a British cardiologist, attending a conference in Washington, is quoted in a U.S. online magazine and is taken to court in London by a Boston-based medical manufacturer.
Now, a wide-ranging group including scientists, stand-up comedians, novelists and human-rights activists is throwing its support behind a campaign to reform libel laws.
“Does England deserve to have scholars visiting us and sharing their ideas if this is the way they get treated?” says Mr. Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and Big Bang. “The laws need to be changed so that London isn't the most attractive place in the world to sue someone.”
Simon Singh, the British science writer and author of Fermat's Last Theorem and Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial, is being sued by the British Chiropractic Association for a 2008 article he wrote in the Guardian newspaper's Comment is Free section in which he questioned the efficacy of chiropractic treatments. A judgment found in favour of the BCA, but Mr. Singh won the right to launch an appeal, which is being heard by a panel headed by Britain's Chief Justice on Feb. 23.
Why has London earned this reputation? The answer is multifold: The burden of proof rests with the defendant, unlike in the United States, and it's assumed that the person (or company) that brought the suit has a reputation to lose in the first place. Crucially, there's a provision in British law that if an alleged defamation appears anywhere in the country, no matter how briefly – written in a newspaper read by 10 people, say, or available to download from a foreign website – then it's actionable.
Then there are the vast rewards at stake. Lawyers are spurred on by “conditional fee agreements,” otherwise known as “no-win, no-fee” clauses. In theory, this democratizes the law, allowing poor people to launch suits. But a defendant who loses a case has to pay his opponent's lawyer's fees, plus a success bonus – often doubling the fee – and a portion of the winning side's insurance costs as well. Damages can be awarded on top of that. Jack Straw, the British Justice Secretary, recently moved to cap these fees, while announcing a sweeping review of libel law.
Fighting a libel suit in Britain costs 140 times more than anywhere else in Europe, according to a study by the Comparative Media Law and Policy Centre at Oxford University. The sky-high cost means that only a handful of cases go to trial each year; it's estimated that more than 90 per cent of actions are settled out of court.
