MR. BRUCE Golding has followed up his call for a reform of Jamaica's defamation laws by causing a resolution to be tabled in the House proposing a parliamentary committee to review the existing laws and to make recommendations for their upgrading.
The action of the Opposition Leader is welcomed by this newspaper and, we expect, by all well-thinking people who subscribe to the ideals of a free Press and the role it plays as the people's watchdog, guardian of their rights and freedoms.
Detractors, of course, will attempt to categorise our remarks about the Press' role in a liberal democracy as the glib phrases of media people, seeking to shield themselves from the laws of libel and slander, which are aimed at protecting reputations and good names of persons that might otherwise be sullied by the Press. But what Mr. Golding has come to appreciate is that while the Press may have an interest, the basis of its operation is the superimposition of technology on the individual's right to free expression and to hold and exchange ideas. This is the critical foundation of a democratic society.
The free Press has no existence in the absence of the individual's right to free expression. Indeed, the compact arrived at between the Press and society is that when the authorities seek to limit the right to free expression, the Press, through its technological capacity for amplification, must use that ability in defence of these rights and freedoms. Moreover, the community assumes that the free Press, in exchange for the privileges it has, will also use this capacity to fulfil its role as watchdog and guardian of good governance.
Mr. Golding - like others who have argued for more liberal defamation laws to protect those who place the spotlight of scrutiny on public officials from the limiting and chilling effects of potentially ruinous legal action - states that reform must protect the law-abiding, not "provide a firewall of protection for scoundrels."
But the reform must do more in limiting the ability of public officials - those who seek and occupy public office - to hide behind the shield of privacy to escape scrutiny of how they handle public trust, whether in government or private office of public profile. An important test of whether the Press or anyone else has behaved beyond the pale in the event of defamation is whether malice was the intent.
Indeed, we agree with the Antigua-based lawyer, Ms. Bernice Lake, when she declared in a 2003 speech in Jamaica that "there can be no meaningful participation in the fashioning of the nation's affairs unless the conduct of those who direct our affairs can be held up to public scrutiny without inordinate trepidation."
Such an argument is of greater relevance for someone who seeks and attains political office. For as Ms. Lake said: "When he throws his hat in the nation's arena, the politician does so on the basis of an implied promise to promote and protect free speech in the social interest of honest, open and accountable government. He does so with the concomitant subordination of the right to privacy. Upon the assumption of public office, he makes that promise expressly."
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
