Dominic Grieve Quotes

I live my life like anybody else, and people choose to write about mine. And what they write I can't control - when they write lies at least - because the laws can't really protect you unless you can prove malicious intent. So I just choose not to read it.

The judgment means a lot. As a journalist being accused of invading someone's privacy, there is always a risk that it will stick to your name.

People can defame anyone they like, people can write anything they like. But non-accountability is a part of modern Indian culture.

I mean, in some cases with libel laws, you know, they can write things about people who have no course of action, because they can't afford to take legal action against them.

We won't tolerate abuses and crimes made every day in the name of freedom of speech. That is freedom of extortion and blackmail.

The press follow me. I sue them. That's the deal.

I wish there was some way to get the law changed. They can write anything about you after you're deceased and there's nothing you can do about it.

In cyberspace, once privacy is breached, it may be breached worldwide. Free speech is not restricted to a street-corner audience, a locker room, or a limited-circulation publication, but travels the world.

All that crap, you're putting in the paper ... Katie Graham is gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's published.

Punishing libels public or private is foolish, because it does not answer the end, and because the end is a bad one, if it could be answered.

[Libel is] the unavoidable inconvenience attendant upon a high station, which he who dislikes must avoid, and keep himself private…. No man ought to be hindered saying or writing what he pleases on the conduct of those who undertake the management of national affairs, in which all are concerned, and therefore have the right to inquire, and to publish their suspicions concerning them. For if you punish the slanderer, you deter the fair inquirer.

I'd like to see people get sued if they wrote a bad review of my movie. If you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all.

You can call someone a lousy writer. You can say you hate their book. You can even call a person 'white trash' but you can't go on television and slander a person's career. It's illegal, even on reality shows.

I have always respected the freedom of expression. But the dissemination of false information is lamentable and subject to criminal penalties.

If when I am libelled I take no notice, the world believes the libel. If I sue, I have to pay about one hundred pounds' costs for the privilege, and gain the smallest coin the country knows for recompense.

Any time, every time, you can damn the Prime Minister and so long as it is not a lie and a criminal lie, nothing happens to you. You can say a lot of things. You can write books about him, damning him. So long as it is not a libel, go ahead.

I don't have anything to hide but what happens is the media tend to beat up what I say.

While we as members of the Coalition strongly support free speech, it is not unlimited free speech. People aren't free to vilify others on the basis of race or religion.

We want to protect freedom of speech, but it is not unlimited freedom of speech. There has always been rules around defamation, slander and libel, and in Victoria, we have effective rules on racial and religious vilification.

You don't want to go around willy-nilly suing news organizations. That's probably self-defeating.

Oh, in France you can't defame an idea, only a person.

The limit of freedom of expression is the point at which there is an attempt to harm a person or a country.

The basic idea of defamation law is simple. It is an attempt to balance the private right to protect one's reputation with the public right to freedom of speech …. defamation law is often used by the rich and powerful to deter criticisms. It is seldom helpful to ordinary people whose reputations are attacked unfairly.

The greater the truth the greater the libel.

Scandal [criticism and slander] against the great, though seldom prosecuted at present, is however, in the eye of the law, a great crime, and subjects the offender to very heavy penalties.