Category: More…

Injurious falsehood has enjoyed a resurgence in recent times, often pleaded alongside defamation … But as Gail Noe points out, it’s notoriously difficult to establish ... more

NSW District Court Judge Judith Gibson recently completed a study of cases commenced under the Uniform Defamation Act ... Her Honour unearthed some fascinating results and surprising trends, which she summarizes here ... more

Submissions to the NSW Attorney General’s review of the Defamation Act (2005) are now closed. In this report Brigit Morris summarises some of the key criticisms and recommendations from a range of interested parties ... more

The long-held NSW practice of “pleading-back” the plaintiff’s imputations as part of a contextual truth defence has been put to rest … NSW Court of Appeal concludes it is unavailable under the 2005 Defamation Act ... more

Sydney University media law academic Dr David Rolph adds his critique to the Attorney General’s review of the Defamation Act (2005) and calls for a further, more detailed review ... more

Submissions to the Attorney General’s review of of the 2005 Defamation Act have closed and are due to be posted on the department’s website. In this exclusive, the Gazette publishes two of the major submissions – from media alliance Australia’s Right To Know and from the NSW Bar Association … ... more

Victorian Supreme Court Justice David Beach decides that there will be no jury in the defamation action brought by cyclist Mark French against the Herald Sun. The defences are “too complex to be heard by a jury” ... more

NSW Court of Appeal directs a verdict – again. Justices Bergin, Tobias and Sackville agree it was perverse of a jury not to find 10 of 12 imputations pleaded by Professor Bruce Hall for a Science Show program conveyed ... more

Federal Court strikes out proceedings brought against 2GB and Ray Hadley under Section 60 of the Trade Practices Act (1974) and sends the defamation claim to the NSW Supreme Court, where a jury can hear it ... more

High Court unanimously overturns NSW Court of Appeal judgment that determined it had no jurisdiction to hear an appeal from a District Court jury verdict ... more

NSW Court of Appeal dismisses appeal against an allegedly unreasonable jury verdict that found it was not defamatory to call someone “demented”. Justice Ruth McColl describes the appeal as a “forlorn attempt to salvage a lost cause” ... more

The NSW Court of Appeal says it can’t order another s.7A trial despite finding that Justice Michael Adams’ summing up to a second jury was “not fairly balanced” and that he erred in refusing to discharge the jury. Mortgage broker Peter Mohammed can proceed against a report on Naomi Robson’s (pic) Today Tonight ... more