Correspondence
| Date | 01 May 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1974.tb02387.x |
| Published date | 01 May 1974 |
860
THE MODERN LAW REVIEW
VOL.
a7
report
is a contempt of court.
I
and newspaper editors too no doubt want
to
know how that can happen.
The specialist in most branches of English law develops
a
feel for the
trend
of judicial thinking
on
particular topics, and defamation
is
no
exception. The subject of para.
529
is
“Fair information on
a
matter of
public interest.” The views of Pearson
J.
in
Webb
v.
Tds
Publishing
00.
about such
a
breach of qualified privilege are faithfully
set
out with the same
authority
as
every other paragraph in the book and with no words of
qualilleatiin
or
comment. Yet would not the expert say that after
Mon
Artists
v.
GttZ0r
this Pearson kite has ceased to be airborne? The editors
appear to think that anything other than deadpan exposition of decisions is
out of place, except
h
the Preface. An CLIEL~O~OUS point is
the
failure ever
to deal with today’s problems unless the courts ‘by the accident
of
litigation
have been called upon to pronounce. One would like
a
view on the efficiency
of the current newspaper practice of putting
a
headline report in inverted
commas
as
r7.
means
of
enjoying the benefit of “allegcd” activities.
So
in the
chapter on Qualified Privilege we have pages on trade protection societies, no
doubt because sixty years ago disputes reached the courts, but not
a
word
on modern methods of credit information with the libel problems of the
computer print-out. Sometimes this approach leads
to
probable
error;
just
because the court of referees under the Unemployment Insurance Act of
1920
was denied judicial privilege it by
no
means follows that today’s local appeal
tribunals are excluded.
Editing
a
book on defamation makes no great demands on skill in
expounding statutes. Yet sometimes
it
does, and these editors have not
fully mastered the art. Little guidance is offered on obscurities
of
the
Defamation Act
1952.
Could they not also have told us why that Act’s
defence of innocent publication is
so
little used (witness that not
a
single case
in the Law Reports on the section has appeared in its twenty-two years of
life)?
The present editors are capable of meeting my criticisms in the next
edition. Will they? Should they?
HARRY
STREET.
CORRESPONDENCE
TJIE
EDIWR,
Dear Siir,
With reference to
Mr.
Cartwright Sharp’s letter concerning the repeal
of
section 41 of the Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act,
I
was not
unaware
of
section
38
(2)
(a)
of
the Interpretation Act
1889,
when
I
wrote
that
presumably the wife‘s agency of necessity revived in consequence of
the repeal.
It
seems to me
to
be
possible that section
38
(2)
(a)
of
the
Interprdation Act
1889,
rcfers only to other statutory provisiom not being
revivcd, and not to common law rights, of which the agency of necessity
is one.
I
draw some support for this opinion from Halsbury’s treatment of the
relevant section of the Interpretation Act in the
Law#,
8rd ed.,
VOI.
36,
para
717.
If section
38
(2)
(a)
does refer only to the revival of previous
atntutory
provisions, then the agcncy of necessity does still mist, nnd for
at
least
as
long
as
the agency by cohabitation retnains it seems to me not unreasonable
that
it should do
so.
Lecturer
in
Lnw.
Drunel Uniaersit~~.
The
Modern
Lctw
IZeview.
Pours faithfully,
P.
T.
O’NEILL.
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