The Press is obliged to make good, not do good: why the crime-busting myth harms the SLAPPs debate, or why we need section 40, Crime and Courts Act – Paul Wragg

We need to do away with these libel laws, says Meirion Jones in The Guardian, because they only protect evildoers and they stop us, the press, from bringing them to justice. I can reveal, he continued, that The Sun could have brought Jimmy Savile to justice in 2008 but the threat of libel action meant that all the testimony they collected was wasted and so, since the chance of a scoop was gone, they did nothing with it…

Leveson: Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act: should it have been brought into force rather than being treated as a question of government policy? – Christopher Whitmey

The Crime and Courts Act 2013 (‘CCA’) sections 34-42 inclusive are headed “Publishers of news-related material: damages and costs” and form a complete and closely integrated scheme enacted for the public benefit, and the protection of the press from spurious complaints, for implementation as a whole. How can bringing section 40 into force logically be a question of government policy?

The Data Protection Bill, Human Rights and the Daily Mail – Hugh Tomlinson QC

On Wednesday 9 May 2018, the House of Commons will deal with the Report Stage of Data Protection Bill. [pdf]  Two amendments relevant to press regulation have been proposed.

Press Regulation: We are only one signature away from a revolution in access to justice – Brian Cathcart

It is a longstanding national scandal that, although in principle the law protects us against libel and breach of privacy by news publishers, with rare exceptions those laws work only for the rich. The vast majority of people in Britain simply can’t afford to go to court to uphold their right not to be lied about and and their right to have a private life.

Leveson: Karen Bradley gets it wrong five times – Brian Cathcart

The Media Secretary, Karen Bradley, told the Commons Media Select Committee this week that she will announce the long-overdue outcome of her consultation on Section 40 and Leveson Part Two ‘shortly’ – hinting it would be in the next few weeks.

Should Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 be in force by now? – Christopher Whitmey

On 23 June 2017 the Department of Culture Media and Sport replied to a Freedom of Information request, posted on WhatDoTheyKnow, concerning the government’s Consultation on the Leveson Inquiry and its implementation.

Victims or Villains: is the freedom of the press under threat? – Julie Doughty

This was the question for debate at Cardiff University School of Journalism on 24 May, an event originally envisaged as a discussion on the possible implementation of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 as a threat to the freedom of the press or, alternatively, an opportunity for those wronged by the media to find justice.

The Tories hand the press their get-out-of-jail-free card – Brian Cathcart

The Conservative election manifesto [pdf] reveals with absolute clarity the depth of Theresa May’s subservience to the billionaire-owned, Brexit-backing corporate national press.

With ‘no-win-no-fee’ deals harder to get in libel cases, government must choose whether to back the corporate press or the ordinary citizen – Brian Cathcart

The Supreme Court has dismissed appeals brought by the Murdoch, Mail and Mirror newspaper companies in relation to costs they must pay in libel and privacy cases they have lost – but at the same time the judges have thrown the future of access to justice in such cases into the lap of the government.

How Dacre and the Mail are making the case for section 40 – Brian Cathcart

By threatening to sue the journalism crowdfunding platform Byline, the editor of the Daily Mail isn’t just reminding us that he is a bully, he is also presenting a case study in why the Leveson reforms he hates so bitterly are exactly what this country needs.