Page 71 - Law and the Media

2 Blasphemy, Seditious Libel
and Criminal Libel

David Green

2.1 Introduction

Those in the media can face criminal prosecution for the ancient offices of blasphemous
libel, seditious libel and criminal libel. No modern government would (one hopes) bring
these prosecutions. Public interest litigators seeking to punish, and publicize, violations of
religious, political or personal sensibilities may, however, pursue private prosecutions. These
are rare but not unknown.

The possibility of criminal sanctions against such exercises of free expression appears out of
place in the era of the Human Rights Act 1998, which gives full effect in domestic law to
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the European Court of
Human Rights held as recently as 1995 that the law of blasphemous libel was a justifiable
interference with an individual’s freedom of expression. Criminal libel and seditious libel
may be similarly protected.

2.2 Blasphemy

The law of blasphemy, or blasphemous libel, which many considered to have been long
forgotten as a basis for criminal prosecution, enjoyed a revival in the mid 1970s as a result
of the successful private prosecution launched in 1977 by campaigning moralist Mary
Whitehouse against Gay News magazine.

2.2.1 What is blasphemous libel?

The common law offence of blasphemous libel is traditionally defined, according to
Archbold in The Criminal Practitioner’s Handbook, as:

. . . to speak, or otherwise publish, any matter blaspheming God, e.g. by denying
his existence or providence, or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ, or
vilifying or bringing into disbelief or contempt or ridicule Christianity in general
or any doctrine of the Christian religion or the Bible.