The European Court of Human Rights ruled against the paper
having to pay the “success fee” Campbell agreed to pay her lawyers on top of
other legal costs, arguing it didn’t fit the offense.
In 2004, Campbell won her battle against the Daily Mirror,
which printed photographs in 2001 showing her leaving a drug counseling
meeting. Britain’s highest court ruled the paper breached Campbell’s privacy by
running the photos and a story detailing her treatment.
The model testified at the time that she felt “shocked,
angry, betrayed and violated” by the piece, which was headlined: “Naomi: I am a
drug addict.” The Strasbourg court said the “success fees” were more than
365,000 pounds as part of over 1,000,000 pounds in costs, and called them
disproportionate.
The judges said there is a risk to media reporting and
freedom of expression if the potential costs of defending a case risked putting
pressure on the media and newspaper publishers to settle cases that could have
been defended.
British libel laws place the burden of proof on the
defendant to show what it published was true. But many other countries -
including the US - require plaintiffs to prove a published article was both
false and written with malicious intent. Free speech advocates say the UK legislation
has a chilling effect on journalism, as newspapers are reluctant to publish
certain types of articles due to fears of hefty legal fees and lengthy court
disputes.
That has earned Britain a reputation as a “libel tourism”
destination for celebrities and corporations to wage costly legal battles - a
phenomenon the government has vowed to curb.
“This judgment is a clarion call for the UK judiciary to put
libel costs under the microscope,” said media law specialist Mark Stephens, who
helped prepare a submission on free speech to the Strasbourg court and called
the ruling an “amazingly good result.” “It means that the gravy train for
grasping claimant lawyers and their greedy clients has hit the buffers.” The
government has pledged to change Britain’s libel laws.
In a statement Tuesday, it said it was already working on a
“much-needed reform of conditional fee arrangements, including success fees.”
The Daily Mirror welcomed the ruling, saying that after a long hard fight it
has “been proved right” about success fees.
The Daily Mirror had also complained to the court that the
privacy verdict and the amount of legal fees breached the paper’s right to
freedom of expression.
The court, however, rejected that claim. The judges found
that, since the publication of the photos and articles had not contributed to
any “debate of general interest” to society, the newspaper had a lower level of
protection for freedom of expression.
