Robertson claims that
We do not have free speech in Britain, we have expensive speech. Any statement which "lowers a person in the eyes of right thinking members of the community" is defamatory, and is therefore presumed to be false, although it may very well be true. Defending a libel action in Britain is vastly more expensive than in any other European country – lawyers will rack up a million pounds in fees for a short trial and our cash-strapped media is increasingly choosing to settle rather than to fight for its freedom – which, after all, is its reader's freedom to receive information.He argues for "one simple and necessary reform", ie
to abolish the arcane presumption of falsity and require libel claimants – like claimants in any other branch of the civil law – to prove that the statement was false. Placing the burden of proof on media defendants has produced innumerable miscarriages of justice in libel trials. It is the reason why US courts refuse to enforce English defamation judgments and why US newspapers are now threatening to withdraw from London, known as 'a town called Sue'.Robertson notes that
the British media is partly the author of its own misfortune. It has never much cared to fight for free speech in recent times, notwithstanding John Wilkes and those courageous book sellers who, two centuries ago, went to prison for publishing Tom Paine. Instead, our media funds the Press Complaints Commission - a confidence trick that has ceased to inspire confidence. Newspapers deceive their readers when they pretend that PCC decisions have any significance. In these days of conditional fee agreements, the Council no longer functions as a 'poor persons libel court'. It has abjectly failed to halt the advance of a vague privacy law, based on incoherent Euro-prosaic concepts and which denies the media the right to jury trial.Much the same could be said of the Australian Press Council (APC), a body that gives self-involved and indolent tabby cats a bad name.
Robertson also exhorts the UK to
abolish the rule that allows foreigners to come here and to haul their foreign critics into our Courts because of internet downloads from foreign websites. We are not a libel Globo-cop and our plaintiff-friendly law is making Britain an international free speech black spot, the place where the world’s human rights violators come to sue their critics. Only if internet libels are uploaded here or are advertised or directed here should English courts entertain libel actions against their authors.
