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.

Tens of thousands of angry Internet users signed an online petition demanding the impeachment of a judge who handed down suspended sentences to four men convicted of incest.
[…]
On Nov. 20, the Cheongju District Court convicted a grandfather and three uncles of a teenage girl of sexually molesting her from August 2001 to May of this year. But Judge Oh Jun-keun handed down a three-year suspended sentence to the 87-year-old grandfather and two uncles, 57 and 42, for raping the now-16-year-old girl, who has mental and developmental disabilities.

Another uncle, 39, was given an 18-month suspended sentence. Judge Oh said his involvement was relatively minor.

Get this: The judge opted to be lenient because it was so stressful and expensive to raise the girl and because some of the perps are old and sickly. He even said it was fine for the rapists to continue to care for her.  Thankfully, a group that helps women with disabilities is sheltering the girl.

Prosecutors sought jail terms of between three and five years for the perps and say the suspended sentences will be appealed.

h/t: icad

Dean Jobb, Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of King’s College:

“If there is going to be a process that gives a state agency control deciding who is a journalist and who isn’t, I can’t accept that” […]

David Coles, Q.C., Media lawyer, law firm Boyne Clarke:

“I have real difficulty with the court being involved in accrediting the very reporters who are reporting on what the judges did,” said Coles.

He’d prefer there were no accreditation at all.  “If somebody wants to go to the courthouse, report on what’s going on, in whatever venue, if simply to take it home and talk about it with the kids over the dining room table or whether you want to publish it in the national newspaper, it’s reporting. And it seems to me the more reporting by more sources, the more access, the more in depth it can be, the better for the democracy,” said Coles.

But is that “responsible journalism”?

Kevin Cox, managing editor, allnovascotia.com:

Cox says his website is a “news-oriented business website” that can easily meet the criteria [for online journalists]. But he says he shouldn’t have to prove it.

“I don’t think it’s any of their business what kind of website we run. Why do the courts care?” says Cox.

John Piccolo, director of communications for the Nova Scotia judiciary and the media cop who wrote the 51-page accreditation guidelines, stood by his brainchild.