Qualified electoral privilege

Culnane v Morris and another [2005] EWHC 2438 (QB); LSG 5 January

The purpose of s10 of the Defamation Act 1952 was to restrict the defence of qualified privilege in respect of words published at the time of an election and not to preclude it altogether. The section did not deprive a candidate of privilege possessed by everybody else, but ensured that such persons were not accorded a special privilege of their own. It was important to appreciate that the section did not provide that ‘a defamatory statement published by or on behalf of the candidate in any election to a local government authority or to Parliament shall be deemed not to be published on a privileged occasion’, nor did it specify that a candidate should be confined to the defences of fair comment and justification, and such words should not be implied from the text. Accordingly, a claim by the British National Party electoral party candidate based on defamation in respect of words contained in a leaflet published by the defendant Liberal Democrats at the time of an election could be defended on the grounds of qualified privilege.