A Decade in the History of Newspaper Libel A Paper Read at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Press Association Held at Ottawa, March 6th7th, 1892, for General Circulation Classic Reprint

Excerpt from A Decade in the History of Newspaper Libel: A Paper Read at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Press Association Held at Ottawa, March 6th-7th, 1892, and Published by the Association for General Circulation

Up to the year 188 the law of newspaper libel remained as it had been for a long period of years. In that year the first notable amendments were made. It will be exactly ten years on the tenth day of the present month of March since The Newspaper Libel Act, of Ontario, was passed. Five years later, on the twenty-third day of April, 1887, another Act respecting the Law of Libel was passed, slightly amending the previous Act and applying mainly to newspapers. These two Acts have been incorporated in the general Act relating to libel in the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1887. On the twenty-second day of May ofthe following year,1888.an Act was passed by the Dominion Parliament amending the law of criminal libel in some important particulars. During the last session of the Dominion Parliament a bill relating to the criminal law of Canada, and embodying the law of criminal libel, was introduced by the Minister of Justice, and laid over to the present session. This measure, of which the sections relating to defama tory libel form but a small part, is one of great and far-reaching importance. It aims at codifying the whole criminal law of the Dominion, and is in this respect a new and interesting departure in legislation. It is founded upon, and adapted from, the draft criminal code proposed by the Royal Commission in England in 1879, the criminal law bill introduced into the British Parliament in 1880, and the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1886. The sections of the draft bill which codify the law of libel are eighteen in number. There are, of course, other sections which bear directly or indirectly upon libel as a criminal offence. They are all of vital moment to journalists, whether newspaper publishers or newspaper writers they are of supreme consequence also to the commonwealth, because they affect the liberty ofthe subiect, and, what journalists as a body will prize even more, the liberty of the press as an organ of public opinion.

From this brief statement it Will be seen that the past decade has been a memorable one in the history of newspaper libel. \ve are quite safe in saying that, since the passage of Lord Campbell's Act, in the early part of the present reign (6 and 7 Vict., c. Which mate'rially extended the benefits of Fox's Libel Act (32 Geo. 3, c. 60) - the magnet c/zarla of the press. - there has been no period more fruitful in amendments, and on the whole salutary amendments, of the law, than that which, commencing in 1882, will close with the present year. It will be impossible to discuss all these amendments in the present thesis. In a paper which the writer had the honour of reading at the winter meeting of the Association held at Toronto in 1889, and which was afterwards published amongst the transactions of the Association, the amendments of the criminal law oflibel, then just passed, were fully reviewed. Some suggestions contained in that paper for a further improvement of the law, along the lines of recent legislation in England, may be worth considering at the present meeting, especially in view of the revised criminal code which the Minister will again bring before Parlia ment. The provisions of the Ontario Act of 1887, in regard to security for costs in libel actions against newspapers, were also discussed by the writer in a paper. Which was published in The Globe of 19th july, 1890. It is pro posed now to review, as briefly as the importance of the subject will permit, the other amendments of the law contained in the Ontario Acts of 1882 and 1887. The Association will then have, in something like a permanent form, a concise commentary, which it is hoped may be of some practical service, on the past decade of legislation affecting the newspaper press.