| 词汇 | Libel |
| 释义 | `1`Libel `2` "Legal Lexicon": LIBEL - Published material meeting three conditions: The material is defamatory either on its face or indirectly; The defamatory statement is about someone who is identifiable to one or more persons; and, The material must be distributed to someone other than the offended party; i.e. published; distinguished from slander. Criminal Law. A malicious defamation expressed either in printing or writing or by signs or pictures, tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, with intent to provoke the living; or the reputation of one who is alive and to expose him to public hatred, contempt or ridicule. It has been defined perhaps with more precision to be a censorious or ridiculous writing, picture or sign, made with a malicious or mischievous intent. In briefly considering this offence, we will inquire: 1. By what mode of expression a libel may be conveyed; 2. Of what kind of defamation it must consist; 3. How plainly it must be expressed; 4. What mode of publication is essential. The reduction of the slanderous matter to writing or printing, is the most usual mode of conveying it. The exhibition of a picture, intimating that which in print would be libelous, is equally criminal. Fixing a gallows at a man's door, burning him in effigy or exhibiting him in any ignominious manner, is a libel. There is perhaps no branch of the law which is so difficult to reduce to exact principles or to compress within a small compass as the requisites of a libel. All publications denying the Christian religion to be true; all writings subversive of morality and tending to inflame the passions by indecent language, are indictable at common law. In order to constitute a libel, it is not necessary that anything criminal should be imputed to the party injured; it is enough if the writer has exhibited him in a ludicrous point of view; has pointed him out as an object of ridicule or disgust; has, in short, done that which has a natural tendency to excite him to revenge. The case of Villars v. Monsley was grounded upon the following verses which were held to be libelous, namely: 'Old-Villers, so strong of brimstone you smell... As if not long since you had got out of hell... But this damnable smell I no longer can bear. Therefore I desire you would come no more here; You, old stinking, old nasty, old itchy, old toad... If you come any more you shall pay for your board... You'll therefore take this as a warning from me and never enter the doors, while they belong to J. P. Wilncot, December 4, 1767.' Libels against the memory of the dead which have a tendency to create a breach of the peace by inciting the friends and relatives of the deceased to avenge the insult of the fanlily, render their authors liable to legal animadversion. If the matter be understood as scandalous and is calculated to excite ridicule or abhorrence against the party intended, it is libelous, however it may be expressed. The malicious reading of a libel to one or more persons, it being for sale on the shelves in a bookstore; and where the defendant directed the libel to be printed, took away some and left others; these several acts have been held to be publications. The sale of each copy, where several copies have been sold, is a distinct publication and a fresh offence. The publication must be malicious; evidence of the malice may be either express or implied. Express proof is not necessary for where a man publishes a writing which on the face of it is libelous, the law presumes he does so from that malicious intention which constitutes the offence and it is unnecessary for the prosecution to prove any circumstance from which malice may be inferred. But no allegation, however false and malicious, contained in answers to interrogatories, in affidavits duly made or any other proceedings, in courts of justice or petitions to the legislature, are indictable. It is no defence that the matter published is part of a document printed by order of the house of commons. Go to Libel2 |
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