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The Oldest English Newspaper in South Asia
Founded 4.2.1834
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Colombo 10, Sri Lanka.
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On criminal defamation

It was good to see the familiar bearded features of our old friends of the Free Media Movement in earnest consultations with the new Minister of Mass Media Imtiasz Bakeer Markar. As a result we have been informed by our sister Sinhala newspaper the ‘Dinamina’ this morning that the Minister’s colleague the Minister of Justice W.J.M. Lokubandara is to bring legislation before Parliament repealing the law of criminal defamation under which several newspaper editors are already charged before courts.

It is worth recalling that this was one of the measures recommended by a committee headed by the eminent constitutional lawyer R.K.W. Gunasekera which was appointed by the late Media Minister Dharmasiri Senanayake. However his successor Minister Mangala Samaraweera for reasons best known to him chose to ignore these recommendations although this was one of the issues which the PA had campaigned against at the 1994 elections.

The Government’s decision to revise the law is welcome for two reasons. One is the same purpose can be served by invoking the law of ordinary defamation. The second is that the law of criminal defamation has often been used to coerce and frighten newspapers which have provoked the displeasure of the Government. Not the least obnoxious feature of this law is that an offender can be imprisoned if the courts so desire.

Having said that, however, a word of caution to newspapers themselves will not be out of place. That is about the need to be accurate. Defamation cases are costly affairs so that it is not everybody who believes that he has been hurt by a newspaper who is in a position to go to courts. Without telling tales out of school we can safely say that it is not every newspaper editor either who wields the enormous power he has wisely. Therefore, it becomes incumbent on newspaper editors once they have been freed of the incubus of the criminal defamation law to be accurate in their reporting and fair in their commentaries particularly in a situation where there has been an unprecedented burgeoning of the mass media in recent times.

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