Report

A new moment for defamation law reform in Northern Ireland?

Think tank: The Foreign Policy Centre

Author(s): Dr Mark Hanna

June 2, 2021

This article by UK think tank the Foreign Policy Centre looks at the potential for, and importance of, long awaited defamation reform in Northern Ireland.

Dr Mark Hanna, Lecturer at the QUB School of Law, discusses the potential for, and importance of, long awaited defamation reform in Northern Ireland. On 14 May 2021, the UK Government gave consent to a Private Member’s Bill introducing proposals for reform, and called it a welcoming step ‘to put Northern Ireland in line with the rest of the United Kingdom’. Hanna sets out how it is now finally time for the question of reform to be debated in the open and considered way it deserves, and ties it to the need to better protect ‘public interest’ speech in Northern Ireland.