Top defamation lawyer backs cap on jury awards

Huge defamation awards by Irish juries are “discrediting the law” and should be capped, one of Ireland’s top defamation lawyers has said.

Paul Tweed, who left Johnsons Solicitors in Belfast to set up his own boutique firm TWEED in Belfast, Dublin and London, made the remarks on a new podcast from the Sunday Business Post.

Mr Tweed said: “I think we’ve got to a point where there has to be a cap on jury awards. I think the jury still performs a very important function, but not the extent of putting the lights out at not just a publisher, but somebody who has made a mistake.

“Not only is it disproportionate, it is not even serving the purpose it is intended to. The multimillion-euro awards are actually discrediting the law and the system and that is a problem.”

Mr Tweed also told the new Legal Matters podcast, set to go live this Wednesday, that print media “has to be protected at all costs”.

He said there was “no substitute for proper investigative journalism” and the media was carrying a heavy “economic burden”.

The lawyer, who’s acted against many papers, added: “You may think it’s a bit hypocritical for me to say that, given my history, but certainly over the years I’ve acted for many newspapers as well as acted against them, and I’ve always tried to give them a fair crack of the whip.”