libellaw

Libel and slander are the legal subcategories of defamation. Generally libel is defamation in print, pictures, or any other visual symbols. Slander is spoken defamation. The advent of electronic communications has complicated the classification somewhat. Some countries treat radio defamation as libel, others as slander. Television presents similar problems.

In the field of libel, U.S. practice is less strict than the English, and in the United States a public figure cannot sue for honest but unfair and untrue criticisms of his activities, whereas in England published facts must be true and comment fair. In some Australian states truth is not necessarily a defense to an action.

...even considering the element of actual “danger.” On the same basis it has upheld laws excluding from public employment persons holding subversive beliefs. In the United States the law of libel (see defamation) concerning public figures actively protects free speech inasmuch as, under the doctrine of New York Times v. Sullivan...

...though numerous complicated defenses also make sure that free speech is not totally throttled. But in the main the English law of defamation is complex and archaic. The old distinction between libel and slander (defamatory matter in permanent and in transient form, respectively) is preserved; the plaintiff is not entitled to legal aid (with the practical consequence that only wealthy...

In some countries, particularly Great Britain, the law of libel presents insuperable problems to novelists who, innocent of libellous intent, are nevertheless sometimes charged with defamation by persons who claim to be the models for...

...had yet to be taken: in 1766, Parliament put an end to general warrants (i.e., for the arrest of unnamed persons and for the seizure of unspecified papers); and in 1792, Charles James Fox’s Libel Act finally gave the jury the right to decide the issue, which had previously depended mainly on the judge. Subsequent efforts to suppress printed matter have centred on questions of libel,...

...a clergyman defending a charge of criminal libel, but his contention that it is for the jury, not the judge, to determine whether a publication is libelous was vindicated by the passage of the Libel Act of 1792. In 1789 he won an acquittal for a bookseller who was charged with criminal libel for selling a pamphlet criticizing the trial of Warren Hastings, a former governor-general of India...

...held high office for less than a year altogether. He achieved only two important reforms, steering through Parliament a resolution pledging it to abolish the slave trade speedily and, in the 1792 Libel Act, restoring to juries their right to decide not merely whether an allegedly libellous article had, in fact, been published but also what constituted libel in any given case and whether...

...Carol shows that it was already possible to strike the characteristically English note of insular patriotism soon after 1415. Of particular interest is the Libel of English Policy (c. 1436) on another typically English theme of a related kind: “Cherish merchandise, keep the admiralty, / That we be masters of the narrow sea.”

Libel and slander are the legal subcategories of defamation. Generally libel is defamation in print, pictures, or any other visual symbols. Slander is spoken defamation. The advent of electronic communications has complicated the classification somewhat. Some countries treat radio defamation as libel, others as slander. Television presents similar problems.

...numerous complicated defenses also make sure that free speech is not totally throttled. But in the main the English law of defamation is complex and archaic. The old distinction between libel and slander (defamatory matter in permanent and in transient form, respectively) is preserved; the plaintiff is not entitled to legal aid (with the practical consequence that only wealthy people can...

...he was convicted of libel for his anti-Catholic tract “Narrative” (1679). After being publicly pilloried and whipped, he was assaulted and struck in the eye with a cane by a barrister, Robert Frances; he died shortly afterward from the blow.