The Supreme Court has named the new defence "public interest responsible communication" to reflect that the defence is available not just to the press, but "to anyone who publishes material of public interest in any medium."
The Supreme Court agreed with the submissions made by Blakes on behalf of the Toronto Star that "the current law with respect to statements that are reliable and important to public debate does not give adequate weight to the constitutional value of free expression." The court agreed that the traditional law of defamation too greatly favoured protection of reputation, stating that "defamation lawsuits, real or threatened, should not be a weapon by which the wealthy and privileged stifle the information and debate essential to a free society."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome that contribute to the discussion or foster further debate.
In the interests of ensuring that people take responsibility for their own words, individuals can make comments using their Blogger ID or OpenID.
Profiles should be open to the public and reveal an e-mail address so that people may contact the commenter directly.
Anonymous comments, including those from people using fake, apparently fake identities, or profiles without contact information may be deleted. Spam will be deleted as soon as it is identified.