A Crisis of Democratic Accountability: Public Libel Law and the Checking Function of the Press
This
book undertakes a comparative study of the public interest and
political speech defences in defamation law, particularly from the
perspective of the misuse of democratic free expression justifications.
Specifically, it argues that the law and legal approaches taken by
leading courts and legislatures in the UK, Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, and the United States – five common law comparators – are
undertheorised, lack adequate criteria for determining the correct form
of the defence, and would benefit from a more precise understanding of
'democracy', 'accountability', and 'representation'. The book will be of
great interest to scholars of free speech, defamation and public law.
