Simon Singh today won a crucial ruling on meaning and fair comment at the Royal Courts of Justice. Simon Singh has spent two years and £200,000 on this case in defending himself. The pre-trial appeal ruling on meaning in the case of BCA v Singh was presided over by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, and Lord Justice Sedley — one of the most high-powered panels of judges ever to preside on a single case.
Singh is being sued for defamation by the British Chiropractic Association’s (BCA) for comments in a 2008 article for the Guardian newspaper in which he criticised chiropractic and claimed the BCA promoted “bogus” treatments, DESPITE THERE not being “a jot” of evidence of their effectiveness. In May 2009 the High Court gave a negative ruling on the meaning of Singh’s article, when Mr Justice Eady ruled that the author’s use of the word “bogus” implied that the BCA deliberately endorsed treatments they knew to be questionable.
The judges today rejected Eady’s interpretation and voiced concern that the case ‘has almost certainly had a chilling effect on public debate which might otherwise have assisted potential patients to make informed choices about the possible use of chiropractic.’
In a ruling of immense significance that will free scientific debate from the chill of libel action, they recommended that scientific controversies should be settled by methods of science rather than legal action and recommended that the defence ‘fair comment’ be replaced with ‘honest opinion’, as a more robust defence to the right to free expression.
‘If the BCA continues in its pursuit of suing Simon Singh after such a damning judgment,’ said Jo Glanville, Index on Censorship. ‘It may soon be in need of chiropractic treatment itself. The ruling today is a significant victory for the defence of freedom of speech. It’s essential that scientists and academics are allowed to criticise and question treatments, medical practice and research – and today goes a significant way towards lifting the chill on freedom of expression.
The Libel Reform Campaign is calling for a Libel Reform Act, for further information go to www.libelreform.org
For further comment contact
Jo Glanville, Editor, Index on Censorship jo@indexoncensorship.org +44 (0) 20 7324 2531
Padraig Reidy, News editor, Index on Censorship, padraig@indexoncensorship.org +44 (0) 20 7324 2526
The Libel Reform Campaign is a coalition of English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense About Science. The campaign has over 44,500 signatories to its petition to reform England’s libel laws and for a Libel Reform Bill in the next parliament.
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