The government attempted to rebalance the scales with the passage of the Defamation Act of 2013. It required plaintiffs to show a connection to the country in order to file in it, and stipulated that plaintiffs demonstrate they suffered “serious harm.”If this was supposed to embolden the media, it did not work, said Andrew Scott, an associate professor at the London School of Economics, who conferred with the Ministry of Justice as it drafted the law. The standards needed to win a defamation case were raised, he noted, but nothing was done to address the cost of the process. With journalists and publishers still facing the prospect of hugel …
