BRITISH LAWYER QUERIES PUNITIVE DAMAGES

Desmond Browne QC (5th left) in a group photograph with some dignitaries at the lecture

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday, November 22, 2013

A distinguished British legal luminary, Desmond Browne QC says an award of punitive damages against the media or journalists for libel by the courts “is an indefensible anomaly.”

He observed that over the years, there have been questions of what sanctions should be imposed for a breach of standard and whether the regulator should have power to fine or sanction errant journalists but the course adopted so far has not remedied the situation.

Mr. Browne was delivering the National Media Commission (NMC) 20^th Anniversary Lecture under the theme “Press Freedom and Media Responsibility in a Democracy,” in Accra on Wednesday.

The lecture which formed part of activities marking the 20th anniversary of the NMC was chaired by Justice V.C.R.A.C. Crabbe, Ghana’s Statute Law Review Commissioner and attended by many individuals who have contributed significantly towards the development of the media in Ghana.

Mr Browne, who is a former Chairman of the Council of the Bar of England and Wales, is an expert in Media Law and has handled many libel cases involving high-profile celebrities in the United Kingdom. He is also deeply involved in the ongoing debate in the United Kingdom about whether or not the press should be regulated.

He threw more light on the UK situation where they set up the Leveson Enquiry to investigate the infamous phone-hacking scandals and other issues bothering on ethics of journalism before asking Ghanaians to draw useful lessons from the situation.

Mr. Browne said “in a world in which litigation is much too quick to consume both time and money, there is an overwhelming case for the regulator providing a cheap and speedy scheme of arbitration to resolve disputes without the need to resort to the courts.”

“The truth, of course, is that such complaints, however justified their grievance, are simply deterred from going to law by the cost. I do not suppose it is different in Ghana.”

Dignitaries at the lecture

The distinguished lawyer said the question about whether the same code of standard should govern both the print and broadcast media has been raging and UK’s Press Complaint Commission (PCC) which is the equivalent of Ghana’s NMC had always protested that print media was fundamentally different from other media in the way in which it is transmitted or received.

He said “this may be true, but it is surely not a ground for imposing differing standards.”

Mr. Browne said that fundamentally, where the media are guilty of serious abuse, society as a whole, not just the establishment, makes clear that it will not tolerate it any longer adding “this is what happened in England over phone-hacking. The media loses the trust of its readers, and it is hard to regain.”

He said that looking around the world, the outright opposition of the English press to any form of legislation “seems somewhat exaggerated,” adding “here in Ghana, the NMC Act 1993, section 2, obliges the commission not merely to promote and ensure the freedom and independence of the media, but also to insulate the state-owned media from governmental control.”

He said the contention that irresponsible journalism imperils freedom of expression since it invites society to impose sanctions “is a proposition easier to state, than to apply in practice.

On the issue of whether the regulator should be given hard teeth to bite, Mr. Browne said that the lack of willingness on the part of the UK-PCC to bit saw its downfall adding “but a regulator must do its best; when it finds itself the subject matter of complaints from both quarters, it is almost certainly doing the right job.”