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Limiting political interference in the Press = interfering with the Press and rights of publishers and editors. They were also more than prepared to legislate to provide for Press regulation mechanisms. Neither is classically Liberal, is it?
Also, apologies for going boringly legalese here. They can't provide greater freedoms than Art 10 unless it is removed from the HRA. If it isn't, the Art 10(2) permissible derogations apply (i.e. those limits on freedom of expression remain). Also remember that any later legislation which conficts with the HRA does not impliedly repeal the relevant Article in the HRA. The result is, if any legislation sought to negate one or all of the Art 10(2) limitations, Art 10(2) there would be a declaration of incompatibility by a court, which would lead to the eventual amendment of the later legislation to bring it in line with the HRA provisions.
The whole HRA needs examining for me, but that's a different debate.
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04-01-2021, 11:13 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-01-2021, 11:15 AM by Borin' Baggie.)
Eh? Limiting political interference in the press equates to stopping Ministers appointing the chairs of OFCOM and the BBC Trust as well as transferring oversight of media decisions to Parliament instead of Ministers. How is that not classically liberal?
Press regulation mechanisms apply to what powers the IPSO and other press regulators have, it doesn't change the fact that they would remain self regulating and independent.
And providing greater freedoms of expression for the press would not conflict with the HRA or ECHR, it would complement it. No freedoms from the HRA would need to be removed and Article 10 would be allowed to stand, it would just be bolstered by further legislation that grants greater freedoms.
The proposals are in essence mirroring the US First Amendment on press freedom. That is most certainly liberal.
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The Lib Dems haven't proposed state regulation of the pint media though which is my point, the only notion of regulation is applied to giving the IPSO more powers in line with Leveson to allow for transparency but it would remain a wholly independent entity and print media would remain self regulating. The only other things relate to a policy in mirroring the US First Ammendment to complement Article 10 of the ECHR, a statutory public interest defence and a notification of a court record to a journalist or publisher which give journalists more legislative freedoms.
There is no state regulation of the press policy from the Lib Dems whatsoever.
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But if a body is established by the state via legislation, that IS state regulation even if that organisation is then at arm's length from Government.
For example, the Charity Commission. Arm's length from Government. Independent members. Set-up by statute. That is still state regulation of charities, however.
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The Charity Commission is a non-ministerial governmental department and is the sole regulatory body for charities. Press regulation, meanwhile, is managed by multiple different bodies, all of which are unaffiliated with one another and have nothing to do with the government. The regulators are run by their members.
The Lib Dems proposal was about giving more powers, in line with Leveson, to the self-regulatory bodies for the press so that they can actually properly regulate the industry. The bodies would still be set up by independent of the government and managed independent of the government. The bodies would still not require government authority to exist. There would still not be one single regulatory body to manage the press. That is not state regulation, that is independent self-regulation.
