[2009.01.08] Writ large 大发儿了 Writ, large, 大发

unendingphoenix

Libel tourism
诽谤旅游

Writ large
大发儿了

Jan 8th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Are English courts stifling free speech around the world?
全世界的言论自由都让英国法庭掐住脖子了吗?



SEEN one way, it is nothing short of a scandal. Small non-British news outlets and humble non-British authors (in many cases catering almost wholly to a non-British public) are being sued in English courts by rich, mighty foes. The cost of litigation is so high ($200,000 for starters, and $1m-plus once you get going) that they cannot afford to defend themselves. The plaintiffs often win by default, leaving their victims humiliated and massively in debt.

从一边儿看，这丑闻全乎了。小型的外国新闻媒体和外国的倒霉作家（看热闹的也没几个英国人）让有钱有势的仇家在英国法院告了。打官司的费用忒贵（20万美元起步，没100万就根本打不完），以至于他们想打也打不起。原告经常赢的不费吹灰之力，被告不出庭，结果把脸丢完了还欠了一身的债。

There is another side to the story, of course. Attempts to collect damages for libel and costs from people outside Britain are rare and often fruitless. Just because someone is rich, or holds a foreign passport, or lives abroad, that does not mean that they should not seek justice in an English court. Sometimes the defendants are global news organisations with a substantial presence in Britain. Sometimes the plaintiffs are dissidents, complaining about libellous attacks on them by state-friendly foreign media; a lawsuit in London may be their only chance of redress.

故事当然还有另外一面。从英国外面把钱（诽谤赔偿和费用）收回来的打算也很稀罕，基本也上没戏。可不能因为人家有钱的，拿本儿外国护照，或在国外住着，就不让他们在英语法院里寻个儿公理吧。有时候，被告是全球性的新闻机构，在英国也很有势力。有时候，原告是一帮跟官府意见不同的主儿，受不了一帮亲近官府的记者成天毁他们;伦敦的官司八成是他们唯一的平反昭雪的机会。

Yet some cases are still startling. Two Ukrainian-based news organisations, for example, have been sued in London by Rinat Akhmetov, one of that country’s richest men. One, the Kyiv Post, had barely 100 subscribers in Britain. It hurriedly apologised as part of an undisclosed settlement. Mr Akhmetov then won another judgment, undefended, against Obozrevatel (Observer), a Ukraine-based internet news site that publishes only in Ukrainian, with a negligible number of readers in England. Judgment was given in default and Mr Akhmetov was awarded £50,000 (now $75,000) in damages in June last year. The best-known case is that of Rachel Ehrenfeld, a New York-based author. She lost by default in a libel action brought by a litigious Saudi national, Khalid bin Mahfouz, over allegations made in her book “Funding Evil”. It was published in America and available in Britain only via internet booksellers. Since then she has been campaigning hard for a change in the law.

但是，有些案子还真吓人一跳。打个比方，两个乌克兰的新闻机构在伦敦，让他们国家一个最有钱的主儿雷纳托•阿克梅托夫（Rinat Akhmetov）[注1]告了。头一个，有百十来人在英国订阅的基辅邮报(Kyiv Post)，和人家私下和解后，急赤麻慌地赔了不是。二一个，观察员（Obozrevatel，Observer），一个只在乌克兰发行的（在英格兰没几个人看的）新闻网站，压根儿就没出庭，让阿克梅托夫（Mr Akhmetov）赢了官司。法院去年六月缺席宣判，阿克梅托夫（Mr Akhmetov）赢了5万英镑（7万5千美元）的赔偿。最有名的段子是纽约作家蕾切尔•艾伦菲尔德（Rachel Ehrenfeld）的。一个沙特阿拉伯人，哈立德•本•马赫福兹（Khalid bin Mahfouz）说她在自个的书《给邪恶送钱》（“Funding Evil”）中瞎编乱造，埋汰他，她没出庭，官司输了。这本书在美国发行，英国只能上网买。自那以后，她一直在铆着劲改变这法律。

Yet no attempt has been made to collect the £50,000 in costs and damages awarded against Ms Ehrenfeld, says Mr Mahfouz’s lawyer, Laurence Harris. He adds: “It doesn’t appear that we’ve had any chilling effect at all on her free speech.” (Even now, British booksellers are offering second-hand copies of Ms Ehrenfeld’s book over the internet.) Although Ms Ehrenfeld is sometimes portrayed as being unable to come to Britain because of the lawsuit, he says there is no reason why she can’t visit England “unless she is bringing a lot of money with her”. He notes: “We abolished debtors’ prisons some time ago.”

然而，马赫福兹（Mr Mahfouz）的律师劳伦斯•哈里斯（Laurence Harris）说，压根就没盘算着能从艾伦菲尔德（Ms Ehrenfeld）那收着这五万英镑的费用和赔偿。他顺着往下说： “对她的言论自由，我们丁点吓唬的意思都没有。”（就眼麽前，一帮英国书贩子还在网上倒腾她的二手书呢）。虽然艾伦菲尔德（Ms Ehrenfeld）时不时地让人给描画成因为这官司，不能来英国了，他却说“除非她身边带的钱倍儿多”，要不然压根儿就不碍她来英国的事儿。他提点道：“债务人监狱[注2] 早就给废了。”

Nonetheless, cases such as these have outraged campaigners for press freedom in both Britain and America, who are trying to change the law in both countries. The states of New York and Illinois have passed laws giving residents the right to go to local courts to have foreign libel judgments declared unenforceable if issued by courts where free-speech standards are lower than in America. Ms Ehrenfeld sought such a ruling in late 2007 in New York state courts but failed; with the new law in place she may try again.

然而，这样的案子可把英、美两国的新闻自由捍卫者们给惹急了，他们正试图在这两个国家把法律都给改了。纽约州和伊利诺伊州已通过了法律，如果外国法院的自由言论的标准没美国的高，居民们就能去当地的法院宣布在那儿判的诽谤案子没法执行。艾伦菲尔德（Ms Ehrenfeld）2007年在纽约州试过这招，结果没成；她可以用现成的新法再试吧一回。

Now the campaign has moved to the American Congress. A bill introduced into the House of Representatives last year by Steve Cohen, a Democrat, sailed through an early vote but stood no chance of becoming law. A much tougher version submitted to the Senate, the Free Speech Protection Act, also gives American-based litigants an additional right to countersue for harassment. The bills have been strongly supported by lobby groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, which fear that the protections offered by the First Amendment are being infringed by the unfettered use of libel law in non-American jurisdictions.

现在那帮家伙已经跑到美国国会那边儿去了。去年，民主党人史蒂夫•科恩（Steve Cohen）向众议院提出个议案，该议案顺利地通过了提前投票[注3]，但没啥机会成为法律。一个牛的多的版本——《言论自由保护法》，已提交给了参议院，它同样给美国的诉讼当事人反诉对方骚扰的额外权利。该法案已得到了游说团体——如美国公民自由联盟（American Civil Liberties Union）的大力支持，那帮人担心别国衙门肆无忌惮地折腾诽谤法，会侵害宪法第一修正案[注4]提供的保护。

Similar concerns are being expressed in Britain. In a debate in the House of Commons last month Denis MacShane, a senior Labour MP, said that “libel tourism” was “an international scandal” and “a major assault on freedom of information”. Lawyers and courts, he said, were “conspiring to shut down the cold light of independent thinking and writing about what some of the richest and most powerful people in the world are up to.” He cited, among others, cases heard in London where a Tunisian had sued a Dubai-based television channel and an Icelandic bank had sued a Danish newspaper.

在英国也有人表示了差不多的担心。英国下议院的上个月辩论中，工党资深议员丹尼斯•麦克沙恩（Denis MacShane）就说，“诽谤旅游”是“国际性丑闻”和“对信息自由的严重攻击”。他说，律师和法院“相互勾结，自己不动脑子，给那帮寡头们当笔杆子”。他举了几个在伦敦开审的案子，包括一名突尼斯人起诉迪拜的电视频道和一家冰岛银行起诉一家丹麦报纸。

Mr MacShane also said the Law Society should investigate the actions of two leading British firms that act for foreign litigants, Schillings and Carter-Ruck, implying that they were “actively touting for business”. Neither wished to comment on the record, though both, like other big law firms, have websites promoting their services and highlighting their successes.

麦克沙恩（Mr MacShane）还说，律师协会应该调查这两个律师事务所（Schillings 和 Carter-Ruck）的行为，这两家全国知名律所替外国人打官司，还“主动招徕业务”。这两家律所都不愿公开回应，虽然，他们像其他的大型律所一样，在网站上兜售服务，标榜成功。

British members of a parliamentary committee dealing with the media are now broadening a planned inquiry into privacy law and press regulation. The chairman, John Whittingdale, says the committee has received a large number of submissions from people worried about libel tourism.

负责媒体事务的英国议会委员会目前正在扩大一项针对隐私法和新闻规章的调查计划。该委员会的主席约翰•韦廷戴尔(John Whittingdale)说，委员会已经从对诽谤旅游感到担忧的人堆中收到了大量的请愿书。

These go well beyond the usual media-freedom campaigners. Groups that investigate government misbehaviour say their efforts are now being hampered by English libel law. “London has become a magnet for spurious cases. This is a terrifying prospect to most NGOs because of legal costs alone,” says Dinah PoKemper, general counsel at the New York-based Human Rights Watch. It recently received a complaint from lawyers acting for a foreign national named in a report on an incident of mass murder. “We were required to spend thousands of pounds in defending ourselves against the prospect of a libel suit, when we had full confidence in the accuracy of our report,” she says.

受这些影响的不只是一般的媒体自由捍卫者。调查政府不当行为的团体说，他们的努力正被英国诽谤法拖累着。纽约的人权观察组织（Human Rights Watch）[注6]的总顾问，黛娜•伯克姆博（Dinah PoKemper）说：“伦敦已成为虚假案件的观光胜地。仅仅就法律费用而言，这对大多数非政府组织就是一个可怕的前景。”该组织最近收到了代理一个外国人的律师的诉状，这老外被一份大屠杀报告点过名。“当我们对报告的准确性有充分信心时，我们还是需要花费数千英镑为自己辩护，以应付可能的诽谤诉讼”， 她说道。

The problem is not just money. Under English libel law, a plaintiff must prove only that material is defamatory; the defendant then has to justify it, usually on grounds of truth or fairness. That places a big burden on human-rights groups that compile reports from confidential informants—usually a necessity when dealing with violent and repressive regimes. People involved in this kind of litigation in Britain say that they have evidence of instances where witnesses have been intimidated by sleuthing and snooping on behalf of the plaintiffs, who may have powerful state backers keen to uncover their opponents’ sources and methods.

问题还不只是钱。根据英国诽谤法规定，原告必须证明的只有：文字、言论是造谣诽谤的；而被告通常要证明这些资料是真实或公正的。这可给人权团体们添了一大负担，因为它们是用保密的信息来编纂报告的——在对付暴力且残暴的衙门时通常是必要的。在英国打过这样官司的人说，他们有实际证据证明，证人们曾受到原告方侦查和探听手段的威胁，因为人家没准有强大的政府托着，热衷于揭开对手的底细。

Private matters
隐私问题

A further concern is what Mark Stephens, a London libel lawyer, calls “privacy tourism”, arising out of recent court judgments that have increased protection for celebrities wanting to keep out of the public eye. In December alone he has seen seven threatening letters sent by London law firms to American media and internet sites about photos taken of American citizens in America. “Law firms are trawling their celebrity client base,” he says.

进一步令人关注的就是伦敦诽谤律师马克•斯蒂芬斯（Mark Stephens）所说的“隐私旅游”，它从最近增强了对乐意于脱离公众视线的名人们保护的法院判决中脱颖而出。仅12月，他就看到7封伦敦律所发给美国媒体和网站的关于在美国拍的美国公民的照片的恐吓信。 “律所正拖网打捞他们的名人客户”，他说道。

The more controversial and complicated international defamation law becomes, the better for lawyers. The main outcome of the proposed new American law would be still more court cases, with lucratively knotty points of international jurisdiction involved. Prominent Americans with good lawyers may gain some relief, but for news outlets in poor countries it is likely to make little difference. And as Floyd Abrams, an American lawyer and free-speech defender, notes, a book publisher, for example, will still be nervous about an author who has written a “libellous book”.

而更复杂的且有争议的国际诽谤法变得，更方便律师们了。赚钱的、也棘手的国际司法管辖权搅和进来，新近抛出的美国法律的主要成果仍将是整来了更多案子。有好律师的出色的美国人能松一口气了，但对穷国的新闻媒体来说，可能没多大差别。而且就像美国律师和言论自由的捍卫者，弗洛伊德•艾布拉姆斯（Floyd Abrams）所说的，拿图书出版商举例，它仍将担心作者写了本“诽谤书”。

Mr Stephens, the London lawyer, is taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights, where he hopes to persuade judges that the size of English libel damages is disproportionate. If you get only around £42,000 for losing an eye, why should you get that much or more from someone writing something nasty about you, he asks. But even limiting damages is not enough. For reform to have any effect, it will have to deal with the prohibitive cost of any litigation in London.

伦敦律师斯蒂芬斯（Mr Stephens），正接着一个欧洲人权法院的案子，他希望能够说服法官，英国诽谤法的赔偿的数额大小是不合适的。如果失去一只眼睛只能得大约4万2千英镑的赔偿，为什么别人揭你点丑，你得到反而更多，他问道。但是，即使限制了赔偿的大小也还不够。要使改革有任何效果，就必须对在伦敦打官司的高昂费用进行处理。

译注：
[1] 雷纳托•阿克梅托夫（Rinat Akhmetov）是乌克兰反对党议员、全乌克兰最富有的企业界巨头、乌克兰足球劲旅顿涅茨克矿工的老板、掌握着实力雄厚的煤炭、钢铁帝国。最新一期的2008年福布斯全球富豪榜上，阿克梅托夫拥有73亿美元资产，排名第127位。前年他建立起“有效管理基金”支持乌克兰的经济发展。在基金成立仪式上，诺贝尔奖获得者希蒙•佩雷斯、秘鲁经济学家赫尔南多•德•索托都到场发表了讲话。

[2] 债务人监狱是收押是无力支付债务的人的监狱。十九世纪中叶前，债务人监狱是处理无力偿还债务的一个普遍方式来。1869年的英国颁布的《债务人法》废除了对债务人的关押，即使债务人谁都有能力支付其债务，但没有这样做，但是，债务人仍然可以被监禁不超过6个星期。债务人的监狱给债务人的自由各不相同。，债务人可以支付一点钱换一些自由；一些监狱允许犯人管理生意和接待来访者；其他（例如，舰队和国王长凳监狱，the Fleet and King's Bench Prisons）甚至允许犯人住在监狱之外的很短的距离内—— 此做法被称作“自由的规则”——监狱甚至能容忍秘密“婚姻”。有些债务人囚犯就没那么幸运，被送到混合关押犯罪的监狱。轻微罪的罪犯，债务人，恶性罪犯关在一起而且许多人单独关押。英国19世纪伟大的文学家查尔斯•狄更斯（Charles Dickens）就曾经被关进过这种监狱 (马夏尔西监狱，Marshalsea Prison)， 狄更斯经常在小说中提到这座监狱。

[3] 提前投票（Early Voting）：是指那些在正常投票日当天不能去投票站参加投票的选民，可以在其选举区域进行提前投票。提前投票可以远程进行，如通过邮件，通常是在指定的投票站投票。提前投票的目标通常是增加参与度和缓解投票站选举日的压力。

[4] 美国公民自由联盟（American Civil Liberties Union，以下简称：ACLU）是一个美国的大型非营利组织，总部设于纽约市，其目的是为了“捍卫和保护美国宪法与法律中所肯定的个人权利和自由”。联盟透过诉讼、推动立法以及社区教育达到其目标——即保护公民个人的宪法权利，特别是宪法第一修正案所保护的言论、结社和宗教自由的权利。ACLU在2005年宣布他们的成员数已经超过五十万人，都是义务为联盟工作，其中有很多出色的律师和大学教授、文化界人士，是一个左翼精英的群众组织。无论在美国的什么地方，哪里有公民权利受到侵犯，哪里就会出现美国公民自由联盟的律师，帮打官司和上诉到上一级法庭。

[5] 美国宪法第一修正案是指1789年国会通过了宪法的前10条修正案，就是著名的《权利法案》(Bill of Rights)，《人权法案》的第一条。Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 国会不得制定关于下列事项的法律：确立国教或禁止信教自由；剥夺言论自由或出版自由；或剥夺人民和平集会和向政府请愿伸冤的权利。美国宪法第一修正案对美国影响巨大。美国媒体所享有的一切自由都源于此，在美国，凡是涉及言论、新闻、出版等诉讼，往往都会搬出此，它几乎成为美国媒体或个人言论自由的护身符，不可动摇。以至于美国人把它颂扬为「美国生活方式」的主要内容。

[6] 人权观察组织(Human Rights Watch)是美国的国际非政府组织，对人权进行研究和宣传。其总部设在纽约市。

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