The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-03-24 00:00:00

I•AW OF LIBEL BILL

O'CorixEm., in moving for leave to bring in this bill,
shortly addressed the house. He did nut, he said, intend tog.)
into .the details, but merely meant to initiate the measure,
leaving tlfe responsibility of it entirely to the law officers of the
crown. At present nothing could be more anomalous than our
law of libel. There were three different modes of proceeding.
The first was.an action for damages, and the law on this head
was this—that if the publisher of the words, it was immaterial
how malicious they were, or what injury they inflicted, could
prove them to be true, it was a perfect ilefence, and the plain-
tiff was not only deprived of any compensation for the injury,
but was saddled with the costs of the action. On the other
hand, if the truth could not be proved•p•ocisely in all respects,
all that the ,fury could do was to give small damages ; but the
defendant was severely punished by the costs, though the judge
had a power in England,• but not in Ireland, to certify away the
costs —a power,.however, which was seldom exercised. there
were familiar instances of actions for libel, in which there had
been no expectation of getting more than 6d. damages, but
newspapers had actually been mulcted in costs to the amount of
£3l)', L-100, and in one instance LW), where the damages had
been only 6d. -.(Hear.) The next proceeding was a criminal
Prosecution. In this there were two courses, one by information
in the Court of Kipg's Bench ; but no man could apply to the
Court of King's Bench for a criminal information, unless he
negatived what was imputed to him iu. the publication ; but if
the alleged libel is substantially true,. he was not at liberty to
proceed by information, but must proceed by action or iby n-
dietment. If a person took the third course, and if any word of
the libel should be true, if the subject had been fairly brought
before the tribunal of public opinion, but the plaintiff chose to
proceed, not by- action or by criminal information, but by in-
dictment before a jury, the truth was not listened to, although,
in fact, every word of the alleged libel might be -true. Such
was the state of the law of libel, and he was couviuced that the
house would acknowledge that it demanded an alteration. The
jury were told by the judge—by the common law—for there
was no statute, though the principles of the common law were
nut applicable to such a subject as this—that they were to con-
sider whether the publication was intended to be malicious and
criminal ; yet: they kept from the jury the best evidence as to
whether the publication was criminal and malicious or not—
namely, the truth; for surely.there'could not be a better cri-
terion whether a publication was innocent or malicious than its
truth. It was not an infallible criterion, but it was one of the
best materials for judging of the iniocencr or malice of a pub-
lication, cod. this was rejected by the ,courts of criminal law.
Ile had stated .sufficient to show that. the crown officers, in not
opposing the introduction of the bid, had not neglected their
duty, especially as they intended to watch the progress of the
bill. The hod. and learned member then moved for leave to
bring in a bill to amend the law of libel.
Leave was.then given to bring in the bill. •
On the_motion of Mr. Brotherton, the house' adjourned at
natf-past twelve o clock.