I’ve just heard the fantastic news that Simon Singh has won his libel appeal against the British Chiropractic Association. He now has the right to rely on the defence of fair comment.
Singh, who has contributed to the NS in the past, was sued by the BCA after he wrote a piece for the Guardian describing the association’s claim that spinal manipulation could be used to treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding conditions as “bogus”.
Remarkably, Mr Justice Eady ruled that the comments were factual, not opinion — meaning Singh could not use the defence of fair comment.
Eady also ruled that the use of the word “bogus” implied not merely that the BCA supported ineffective treatments, but that it had been deliberately deceptive.
This left Singh with the Sisyphean task of proving a point he’d never intended to make: that the BCA had been consciously dishonest.
But today, the Appeal Court (consisting of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, and Lord Justice Sedley) ruled that Eady had “erred in his approach”, and granted Singh the right to use the defence of fair comment in the primary lawsuit. He now has a far better chance of winning the case.
But as the Lib Dem MP Evan Harris pointed out today, it is absurd that Singh has had to spend £200,000 and two years of his life just to reach this point. The need to reform Britain’s draconian libel laws, which discourage free inquiry and punish original journalism, remains as urgent as ever.
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