Libel tourism in the UK is “an international scandal”
Yesterday in the British House of Commons, several MPs accused judges and lawyers of using libel laws to clamp down on free discussion of terrorism and its wealthy and powerful financiers.
The Labour MP Denis MacShane, said in Westminster Hall: “The practice of libel tourism, as it is known – the willingness of British courts to allow wealthy foreigners who do not live here to attack publications that have no connection with Britain – is now an international scandal. It shames Britain and makes a mockery of the idea that Britain is a protector of core democratic freedoms.”
The US Congress is proposing a law to stop English courts pursuing American writers for fines over books freely available in the United States. “The case arises from the Kafkaesque position of the writer Rachel Ehrenfeld, whose book, Funding Evil, examined the flow of money towards extremist organisations that preach the ideology of hate associated with Wahhabism and other democracy-denying aspects of fundamentalist Islamic ideology,” Mr MacShane said. “It is not exactly a secret that a great deal of the money that has financed fundamentalist extremist organisations that support jihad has come from Saudi Arabia.”
If Mr MacShane said that outside the House of Commons, he could risk a libel suit.
None of the MPs quoted in The Times report mentions that British courts are only applying libel law as it has been enacted by Parliament. MPs must amend the legislation before British courts can stop being used by libel tourists.
Melanie Phillips has more on this at The Spectator blog. It’s good that this is becoming a public issue, but, as Ms Phillips says, “MPs should not let it rest there”.
Last month, I blogged a column by Rachel Ehrenfeld on her experience as a victim of libel tourism in the UK.
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