Bar council says proposed reforms could drive up defamation awards and legal costs
Juries decide facts and their removal from defamation cases would effectively mean the public is removed from involvement in the administration of justice, he said.
During the hearing, Sinn Féin justice spokesman Pa Daly TD said his party opposes the abolition of juries. When jury trials for most personal injuries cases were abolished, that had not led to any reduction in insurance costs, he observed. It said the Bar would not support total abolition of juries for reasons including the importance of peer review of claims and concerns total abolition would lead to a general increase in cost of litigation.
The Bar also raised issues about proposed changes to the defence of fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest. The changes would predominantly make that latter defence a defence for journalists and there was an issue about the desirability or otherwise of having different statutory tests for media and non-media in the context of that defence, it said. Most defamation cases are non-media cases, it noted.
While generally supporting the scheme of the proposed reforms, the firm believed some matters appeared unnecessary, she said. Dentons did not support the proposed abolition of jury trials for defamation but appreciated others in the industry took a contrary view. The firm also had concerns that the serious harm test may not have the intended outcome in practice and favoured an alternative approach of making defamation claims actionable only on proof of special damage.
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