Coroners and Justice Bill

I can add only a few stray details to the full and excellent history that has been given by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill. We know that seditious libel is an ancient crime, which I believe was last used in the UK in 1947. We also know from the noble Lord’s history that it was extensively used in the past to silence radical protest. So one may ask why I strongly support this amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and others. Is it not redundant and not a very good use of your Lordships’ time? The reason is, to put it simply, that laws on the statute book exist as hostages to fortune; they can be dredged up and used to restrict entirely legitimate speech. In the post-World War II years, the efforts have been to have the right to be free from invidious discrimination on the grounds of race, gender or religious belief. In this, the right to freedom of expression has been implicit. Seditious libel, helpfully defined as, ""speech intended to stir up tumult and disorder for the purpose of disturbing constitutional authority"," could well have been an alternative route to deny entry to the UK of Mr Geert Wilders in February this year. As it happened, his failure to enter the UK was cited as due to a significant risk that his, ""presence in the UK would threaten community harmony and therefore public security"." I regret to say that it is by no means inconceivable that the seditious libel law could easily be resuscitated in the present climate of wide-ranging anti-terrorism legislation. Once again, we can look to US courts’ rulings on seditious libel and find that as recently as 1989 and 1990 the Supreme Court held that the first amendment protects the right to defile the United States flag to express political protest. It was, as one may imagine, a deeply unpopular ruling, but to my mind a welcome one. The power to express forcefully political discontent is the cornerstone of democracy and lies with the people. Conversely, it is not therefore in the power of government to criminalise this expression. The fundamental rights of UK individuals would be better protected by removing the offence of seditious libel from the statute book.