The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 9. 1901. A DRASTIC LAW.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 74, 9 August 1901, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 9. 1901. A DRASTIC LAW.

The Wellington Post says:—A recent decision of the Court of Appeal revealed tbe fact that defamatory libel i was no longer an indictable offence io this colony unless the libeller knew his defamatory statement to be falee. This serious omi-sion from our Ctiminal Code was due to the intention of the Legislature to deal separately with the law of libel. Unfortunately the Code became law without being supplemented by a comprehensive Libel Act, and hence has arisen the attorn tly lately disclosed in the Courts of the colony. It will be generally admitted that no country can safely afford tu remove defamatory libel from its lift of criminal offences, and no prudent person can deny the necessity for an amendment of our law in this respect. But at tbe same time it is needful that proper attention should ba paid to th» freedom of the press, and that, while replacing criminal libel among indictable offences, Parliament should not deprive the public of ttie information and comment which are essential to the health and well-being of the body politic in a democratic community. While license should be curbed, lib rty ought to be respected. The Premier has introduced a Bill dtaling with this subject. It is in the form of an amendment to the Criminal Code Act el 1893, and as it is confined wholly to the criminal aspect of libel it is on the face of it incomplete and unsitisfactory. The law of libel should have been dealt with as a whole, for the criminal and civil aspec's of libel, are too closely connected to be safely separated. This was evidently felt to b3 the case in 1893, when Parliament omitted defamatory libel from the Oiminil Code. ThePremier'sßilldefinesdefama tory libel as " matter publ'shed without legal justification or excugp, ei her designed to ineult the pe'Son of whom it is published or likely to injure h ; s reputation by exposing him to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, whether express d in words marked on any substance or by any object signifying «ueh milter otherwise than by words, 'and may be expressed either di'ec'ly cr by insinuation or irony." Publishing such a libel is defined to consist in (1) exhibiting it in public, (2) causing ir to' be read or seen, or (3) showing or delivering it, or causing it to be shown or delivered, with a view to its baing read or seen by the person defamed or by any other person. Every parson is to be liable to one year's imprisonment who publishes a defamatory libel, and to two years' imprisonment if he ki ows the libel to ba fa'se. The Bill also im poses a liability of five years' imprisonment with hard labour upon every person " who publishes, or threatens to publish, or offers to abstain from pub lishing a defamatory libel, with intent to extert money, or to induce any person to confer upon or procure for any p9rson any appointment or office of ; profit or trust, or bu-iress, (rio c.jLsequence of baing refused any sncb money, appointment, office, or business." It will be seen that the ineacure ss it stands by itself is harsh and dras tic in its term-. The clefinifcioa of defamatory libel is so wide that it ird draw almost any s'atsment or cirtoon which critici-es or ruses the laugh against a person into its net. Publicition is also made complete if the libel is shown «r delivered only to the pprsoa defamed, and thus a private letter never shown or intended to be shown to a third person may become the sub-

ject matter of a. criminal action for libel. It is true that according to tbe criminal law of the Mother Country it is enough that the libsl hag been published to the party Against whom it is directed, but Only if it is avetred that it is intended <Jr calculated to produce a breach of the peace. This, it will at once ba perceived, is very different from the urqualified rule laid down in the Premier's Bill. We quite believe that the Premier <n defending his Bill will to ready tn stand up in his place in Parliament ai d say—" The press has been asking to have the libel law of New Zetland ( brought into line with that of the Old Gauntry. Well, the Government is prepared to do what they want at 1 least so far as criminal libel is con- 1 cerned. This Bill practically mak°s the New Zealand law of ciimioal libel the same as that set forth in the Common Law and the Statute jaw of England;" Thifj within certain limitations to which we shall refer presently and to one of which we have already referred —namely, that of publication to th«i defamed person alone, is just near enough to the truth to givj a specious air to such a statement as the abwe. " Defamatory matter," for instance, in English criminal law is, according to the late Sir James Stephen, " matter which either di.eo»ly or by insinuation or irony tends to expose any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule." By 6 aDd 7 ~Vic*"'. c. 96 any person who maliciously publishes a defamatory lib ;1 may be punished by fine or imprisonment or both, the imprisonment not to exceed one year, while any psrsm malic'ously publishing a defamatory libel, knowing the same to be false, is liable to fine and imprisonment for two years, Other points of resemblance might be urged by Mr. Seddon, but a careful observer 'Would note, as in the ose of pub'ication to the d efamed p°rsm alone, that the Premier's Bill, wLile crystallising into code form the more flexible. English law, has given a slightly harsher tone to the provisions. But this is not all. We have already remarked upon the interdependence of the civil and criminal remedits for libel and the consequent ad visableness of dealing with the law of libel as a whole. This contention is greatly strengthened by consideration of the means by which in recent years the Imperial Parliament has modified the haishnesof the criminal law of lib I Great protection is afforded to t.he pre s \ by section 8 of the law ot L'btsil Amendment Act of 1888, a embodied in Mr O.irnoross's Ml:e! 81l now before our Parliament'. The English c'ause is as fallows: "No criminal prosecution shall be rommenwl •gainst any proprietor, publ'sher, editor or any person respon'ible for the publication of a newspiper for any 1 b 1 published therein without the o-de' of a Judge at Chambers being first hid and obtained. Such application shall be made on notice to the person accused, who shall have an opportunity of '"eing heard against such application " "No order," sajs Dr B'ake CHgers, perhaps the greatest authority in England on t l e law of libel, " wi l be made under this section where a civil action will meet the requirements (f tho csfi." The fxtension of privilege in the matter of reports granted by the Imperial Act of 1888 also mitigates the harshnefs of the criminal law, which would otherwise serious'y curtail tlie amount of news available to the pub'ic. Stfll further protection against vexatious criminal prosecut : ons ;*as provided by s">ction 4 of the Newspaper Libel and Registration. Act of 1881, wbioh empowered a fourt of first instance to receive evidence as to the publication .being for the pub'ic benefit, as to the matter charged in the libel being true, as to the report being fa ; r, accurate, and without malice, and as t - ) any other matter that. might be given in evidence on trial or indictment, and if it was of opinion that there was strong or probable presumption tint the jury- on the triil would acquit the' accused, to dismiss tbe cas®. Even if the Court of first instance did not see its way to dismiss the c is», but yet considered " the libel was of a trivial character," it cciuld give the accused tbe option of baing dealt wi'h summarily, and if hs consented, adjudge him to pay a fine not exceeding £SO. O k >her illustrations might be adduced, but sufficient has been said to prove that the essential harshness of the criminal law of libel has been moiified very materially in tbe Old Country by legislation dealing mainly with the civil aspect of libel. It would be illiberal reaction to pass a law here re-in'roducing the ancient law of criminal lb si unless it were accompanied by legislation making at least such modifications in general law of lib«l a* have b=en adopted by the Imperial Parliament. We trust, ! < herefore, Parliament will not be misled by any specious analogy between the provisions of Mr. Seddon's Bill and tbe text-book explanations of the English law of criminal libel, but will insist upon dealing with the libel law as a whole, not with a p*rt only, and that from a oroad-minded and enlightened point of view.