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The Newspaper Libel and Registration Act 1881 (44 & 45 Vict. c.60) was an act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Introduced as a
Private Member's Bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in wh ...
, it reduced the legislative burden on newspaper proprietors with regard to the offence of
libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defi ...
; as a ''quid pro quo'', the compulsory registration of proprietors (abolished by the Newspapers, Printers, and Reading Rooms Repeal Act 1869) was reintroduced. Following the removal of compulsory registration in 1869, newspaper owners had begun to look to anonymity as a protection against lawsuits arising out of the publication of libellous statements. At the same time, the judgment in ''
Purcell v Sowler Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest En ...
'' (1877) saw a newspaper proprietor successfully sued despite recognition that the libellous statements his newspaper had published were merely quoted verbatim from the testimony of a member of the public made at public meeting. Against this backdrop, two successive
select committee Select committee may refer to: *Select committee (parliamentary system) A select committee is a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues originating in the Westminster system o ...
s were established to look at the law of libel; the first made no report, but the second took on the evidence of the first, and made several recommendations. In the words of John Hutchinson, MP for Halifax, "the Bill embodied the recommendations of
he second He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
Committee, and was confined to them exclusively". The bill itself took the form of a
Private Member's Bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in wh ...
. In terms of content, section 2 of the Act (as it became when it received royal assent on 27 August 1881) introduced a new defence for newspaper proprietors in cases where the libel stemmed from a fair, accurate and non-malicious report of a publicly held meeting. This extension of
qualified privilege The defence of qualified privilege permits a person in a position of authority or trust to make statements or relay or report statements that would be considered slander and libel if made by anyone else. In New Zealand and Ontario, for instance, ...
was then "amplified" by the
Law of Libel Amendment Act 1888 The Law of Libel Amendment Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c.64) was an act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, clarifying and "amplifying" the defence of qualified privilege (and potentially a degree of absolute privilege, though this was no ...
, which in doing so repealed section 2 of the 1881 Act. Repealed at the same time was section 3 ("No prosecution for newspaper libel without fiat of Attorney General"). The Act also benefited newspaper owners insofar as it instituted provisions (section 4, 5 and 6) for the quicker (and hence cheaper) resolution of newspaper libel cases. Contrary to expectations, however, the passage of the Act correlated with an increase, rather than decrease, in the number of
defamatory libel Defamatory libel was originally an offence under the common law of England. It has been established in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. It was or is a form of criminal libel, a term with which it is synonymous. England, Wales and Northern ...
(criminal) actions being brought against newspapers. Whether the two were causally linked is not known, however. In return, proprietors were happy to accept the reintroduction of compulsory registration that had been removed in 1869 (now provided for by sections 7 to 15 of the 1881 Act inclusive). These registration clauses, which included an exemption for proprietors who are already registered companies, were not repealed until 2015 and were still enforced. For the purposes of the Act, a newspaper is defined as "any paper containing public news, intelligence, or occurrences, or any remarks or observations therein printed for sale, and published ... periodically, or in parts or numbers at intervals not exceeding 26 days". As of 2009, 56 newspapers and their proprietors were centrally registered as a result of these provisions. Under section 19 of the Act, it never applied to Scotland. The provisions on registration in sections 7 to 18 were repealed by the Deregulation Act 2015 as being no longer of practical use.Deregulation Act 2015, Schedule 23.
/ref> As a result, only section 4 remains in force, and that only in relation to Northern Ireland and courts hearing charges there of
blasphemous libel Blasphemous libel was originally an offence under the common law of England. Today, it is an offence under the common law of Northern Ireland, but has been abolished in England and Wales, and repealed in Canada and New Zealand. It consists of t ...
.


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* * {{UK-LEG United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1881 Media legislation English defamation law United Kingdom defamation law