London, March 16: Britain is planning in the long term to allow people to reveal secrets of large corporations without fears of facing massive costs during court proceedings.
Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said the reforms will only increase protection for the people who disclose secrets that are in the interest of the public while the privacy laws and superinjunctions remain in place without any change.
“It’s a step in the struggle to get the right balance between freedom of speech and protection of reputation,” Clarke said.
He also added that cost-cutting plans would make the libel law “less daunting for plaintiffs and defendants”.
They will be “more confident they’re able to defend unfounded allegations and claims of defamation against them when people are issuing gagging writs against them, trying to get them to stop repeating allegations by threatening them with the huge costs of litigation”.
Based on the proposals in the government’s draft Defamation Bill, juries will only be used in defamation cases only in “exceptional case[s]”.
Clarke said the draft Bill will simplify the present laws, putting them in “plain English” though he said privacy laws and the use of superinjunctions are not currently the target of reforms.
“At this stage of the Government we have no plans to start acting on the law of privacy or to start acting on superinjunctions and so on. They’re not in our program and we’re not in a position to start contemplating doing it,” he said.
The announcement was welcomed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who said “we cannot continue to tolerate a culture in which scientists, journalists and bloggers are afraid to tackle issues of public importance for fear of being sued”.
——-Agencies