UK Parliament / Open data

Defamation Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Faulks (Conservative) in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 15 January 2013. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Defamation Bill.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he has been patient and has had to deal with a lot of amendments. He was dealing a little while ago with Amendment 29 in the name of my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury. I understood his answer to be that he could not conceive of circumstances in which an operator of a website could be malicious, and this amendment was therefore not necessary. However, operators of a website are given an admittedly qualified privilege by Clause 5 which puts them in exactly the same position as those in other fields of the law who have a qualified privilege, the defence of which is defeated by malice. Is it not therefore inconsistent that such a remedy should not be available in the terms of this amendment? It may not happen very often, but that is no reason for it not existing at all.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
742 c197GC 
Session
2012-13
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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