Time to abolish outdated defamatory libel offence
Prosecuting and jailing citizens for defamatory libel smacks of show trials we’d expect from countries such as Russia and China, says media lawyer and Law Times columnist Alan Shanoff. Yet the archaic law remains on the books and was recently used to imprison an Ottawa restaurant owner for publishing false material concerning an online restaurant reviewer. It's time to abolish the crime and leave libel to the civil courts, he argues in a February 11, 2013 column.
Prosecuting and jailing citizens for defamatory libel smacks of show trials we’d expect from countries such as Russia and China, says media lawyer and Law Times columnist Alan Shanoff. Yet the archaic law remains on the books and was recently used to imprison an Ottawa restaurant owner for publishing false material concerning an online restaurant reviewer. It's time to abolish the crime and leave libel to the civil courts, he argues in a February 11, 2013 column.
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