Cases

Prud'homme v. Prud'homme

December 20, 2002

The Supreme Court of Canada has now said, unanimously, that journalists enjoy a qualified privilege for the publication of "defamatory information in the public interest that he or she honestly believes to be true." The following is the paragraph in question.

50. The defence of qualified privilege is not reserved exclusively to elected municipal officials. It applies whenever a person has an interest or a duty, legal, social or moral, to make it to another person who has a corresponding interest or duty to receive it....This will be the case, for example, where an employer or professor provides references about his or her employee or student, or where a journalist publishes defamatory information in the public interest that he or she honestly believes to be true.

See: Prud'homme v. Prud'homme

It remains to be seen how far this concept will extend in common law cases.