Shooting the messenger?: more defamation suits against critics

Eoin O'Dell has posted a couple of interesting notes on the veritable riot of defamation actions that have been brought by disgruntled subjects against critics of one sort or another across a number of jurisdictions in recent months. In the first, he explained that the action brought - in John Fairfax Publications Pty Ltd v Gacic [2007] HCA 28 - by an Australian restaurant (echoing that brought successfully against the Irish News by Goodfellas in Belfast earlier this year) is far from over, and that the stage reached to date certainly doesn't warrant the exclamatory headlines that it has generated.

In the second, he comments on the decision of the UK Court of Appeal regarding the application of the fair comment defence to a review in the Evening Standard of the Burstein and Edwards opera Manifest Destiny (see Associated Newspapers Ltd v Keith Burstein [2007] EWCA Civ 600). He's also had a response from the composer himself, confirming the intention to take the case to the House of Lords.