Edgeler calls for defamation reform

Graeme Edgeler writes:

With some changes to the Human Rights Act already signalled, the Government response may see some further restrictions on speech, but in one area it should actively seek to change to the law to expand freedom of speech: the outdated, restrictive defamation laws applying in New Zealand.

Yes, totally agree.

Defamation proceedings are commonly thought to be about protecting people’s reputation. That’s close, but not quite: there is not requirement that the claimant’s reputation is harmed and it is no defence to a defamation claim if an author proves that none of the people who read the publication believed it, or that none of them thought any less of the person supposedly defamed. A publication is defamatory if it has the tendency to unjustifiably harm someone’s reputation, even when it actually didn’t.

In theory it is defamatory to call a politician a liar. But does anyone actually change their opinion of an MP just because say another MP has said they are a liar?

Defamation should also not concern itself with name-calling. If your reputation can be harmed by someone calling you a name, your reputation may not have been as good as you thought it was. Without specific allegations, a simple assertion that someone is a racist or is corrupt is likely to have much less effect on someone’s reputation than a claim that someone fired you because of your ethnicity, or that they bribed a council manager to secure a contract. Simple opinions, even unreasonably held ones, are not nearly harmful enough that the law should be concerned with them.

Again agree.