{"id":3619,"date":"2022-07-28T13:20:04","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T05:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/?p=3619"},"modified":"2024-09-09T09:11:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T01:11:34","slug":"tort-law-defamation-fair-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/tort-law-defamation-fair-comment\/","title":{"rendered":"TORT LAW- DEFAMATION- FAIR COMMENT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Upon viewing a report, Mr. A (a politician) had made a statement about Mr. C that he had used the public funds for a national cattle farming project to purchase three units of houses. Mr. C sued Mr. A on the basis that the defamatory statement made had tarnished his reputation and character. Can Mr. C sue Mr. A on the grounds of defamation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q<\/strong>: What is defamation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong>: Defamation is a statement made by a person that tarnishes a person\u2019s reputation. It can be made in writing (considered \u201clibel\u201d) or orally (considered \u201cslander\u201d).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q<\/strong>: Must Mr. C incur financial losses before he can sue Mr. A?<\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong>: No, he can sue for damages as long as his reputation is tarnished.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q<\/strong>: Is there any defence to an action for defamation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong>: If Mr. A has genuinely given a view on a fact proven to be true, he can then raise the defence to his statement made, that is, he has only made a \u201cfair comment\u201d rather than a defamatory statement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q<\/strong>: What is a \u201cfair comment\u201d?<\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong>: A \u201cfair comment\u201d is a comment given based on proven fact.<\/p>\n<p>Three elements of a \u201cfair comment\u201d:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The comment was on a matter of public interest;<\/li>\n<li>The comment was based on facts; and<\/li>\n<li>The comment was one which a normal person would have honestly made on the facts proved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Q<\/strong>: Is there a cap to compensation on defamation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong>: There is no known cap. The court will look at the facts and the following factors to decide how much the compensation would be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The seriousness of the content of the statement;<\/li>\n<li>Mode of publication;<\/li>\n<li>Nature of the statement;<\/li>\n<li>The plaintiff\u2019s current standing;<\/li>\n<li>Whether the defendant has received any benefit from making such statements;<\/li>\n<li>Whether the defendant has refused to apologise; and<\/li>\n<li>What has the defendant done for the period of time between the time he made the defamatory statement and the court finally decides the case.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Q<\/strong>: How long is the limitation period to file a claim for defamation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong>: For West Malaysia, the limitation period is 6 years from the date the defendant published the defamatory statement.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do fair comments made based on facts are not defamatory in nature?<\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1780,1561],"tags":[1665,1683,3410],"class_list":["post-3619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defamation","category-tort","tag-defamation","tag-fair-comment","tag-tort-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3623,"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions\/3623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yhalaw.com.my\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}