Defamation Act 2013
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| Long title | An Act to amend the law of defamation. |
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| Citation | 2013 c 26 |
| Introduced by | Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke Rt Hon Lord McNally |
| Territorial extent | England and Wales only, except that sections 6 and 7(9) and 15 and 17 and, in so far as it relates to sections 6 and 7(9), section 16(5), also extend to Scotland |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 25 April 2013 |
| Commencement | 1 January 2014 |
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Status: Unknown
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| History of passage through Parliament | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Revised text of statute as amended | |
The Defamation Act 2013 (c 26) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which reformed English defamation law on issues of the right to freedom of expression and the protection of reputation. It also comprised a response to perceptions that the law as it stood was giving rise to libel tourism and other inappropriate claims.
The Act changed existing criteria for a successful claim, by requiring claimants to show actual or probable serious harm (which, in the case of for-profit bodies, is restricted to serious financial loss), before suing for defamation in England or Wales, setting limits on geographical relevance, removing the previous presumption in favour of a trial by jury, and curtailing sharply the scope for claims of continuing defamation (in which republication or continued visibility constitutes ongoing renewed defamation). It also enhanced existing defences, by introducing a defence for website operators hosting user-generated content (provided they comply with a procedure to enable the complainant to resolve disputes directly with the author of the material concerned or otherwise remove it), and introducing new statutory defences of truth, honest opinion, and "publication on a matter of public interest" or privileged publications (including peer reviewed scientific journals), to replace the common law defences of justification, fair comment, and the Reynolds defence respectively. However, it did not quite codify defamation law into a single statute.
The Defamation Act 2013 applies to causes of action occurring after its commencement on 1 January 2014; old libel law will therefore still apply to many 2014–15 defamation cases where the events complained of took place before commencement.
The Act changed a number of Defamation procedures. All defamation cases under the Senior Courts Act 1981 in the Queens Bench Division, and the County Courts Act 1984, which were "tried with a jury" unless the trial requires prolonged examination of documents, are now "tried without a jury," unless the court orders otherwise. Such cases are referred through a Defamation Recognition Commission (DRC) to a new Independent Regulatory Board (IRB), to provide arbitration services. The courts should take into account, when awarding costs and damages, whether either party in a dispute has chosen not to use the arbitration service. A successful party is required to pay all of the proceedings costs, if such a party unreasonably refused to use the arbitration service. Judgment awards of exemplary damages, where a defendant is guilty of breach of a defendant’s rights, can take into account whether either party refused to use, or join the arbitration service. Courts should take into account whether defendant first sought advice from the IRB before publication.
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