LAW OF LIBEL AMENDMENT BILL [Lords]. (Hansard, 23 May 1927)

§ Mr. BUCHANAN

We have had no explanation at all in regard to the appointment of this Committee. In the first place, I would like to ask if the usual channels have been consulted as to the formation of this Committee. I should have no objection to this proposal it some reasons had been given to us as to why the Committee is being appointed. I have nothing to say against any members of the Committee, but I would like to know what process of consultation has been gone through in regard to their selection. I notice that a number of lawyers have been chosen, but there seem to be no laymen appointed on this Committee at all. I think it is a shocking business that five men all belonging to the legal profession should be put upon this Committee. Here we have the Law of Libel Amendment Bill which affects certain newspapers very much, because the Law of Libel is constantly being infringed, and this Measure deals with the practice and rights of newspapers, and yet all the five members of this Committee are legal gentlemen and there is not a single lay member who is allowed to sit on this Committee.

The men who stand to gain, after all, by an amendment of the law of libel, are the lawyers. I do not think that anyone, however much he supports the legal profession, would say that that is not the case; and yet the persons appointed to this Committee are taken from the very persons who stand to gain in some way from the appointment. There are representatives of the journalistic profession in this House, Members who edit monthly and weekly organs, and others who are constantly faced with the question as to how far the law of libel affects their 1798 interests, and yet, although we have working journalists in this House, and men who have to consider the law of libel on numerous occasions, not a single Member of this House who is a journalist or newspaper editor has been asked to serve on this Committee. I think it is shocking that no Member of the profession most likely to be affected has been asked to serve on it. Supposing that some kind of Committee were being set up to deal with an investigation into certain charges connected with the legal profession, I say that, if no legal men were allowed on that Committee, there would be a tremendous outburst in this House against such a shutting out of legal gentlemen.