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Some basics of defamation, everyone should know!

1.    Defamation is a form of tort which affects the reputation of a person. For an statement to be considered as defamatory, one of the condition must be fulfilled as follows, (i) to expose the plaintiff to hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy; or (ii) tends to injure the plaintiff in his profession or trade; or (iii) to cause the esteem, respect, goodwill or confidence in which a person is held or to excite adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against him.

2.    There are two types of defamation, those are, (i) libel; and (ii) slander. Libel is a defamation in written form. In contrast, slander is a false spoken statement to injure the reputation of other.

3.    To establish a tort of libel, three conditions must be fulfilled, those are, (I) a false statement has been made against plaintiff; (ii) it must be in any permanent form; and (iii) it has lowered the plaintiff in the esteem of others or the he is shunned by the society.

4.    To establish a tort of slander six conditions must be fulfilled, those are, (i) the statement must be defamatory; (ii) it must be false and not a fair bona fide comment; (iii) it must refer to the plaintiff; (iv) it must be published by the defendant; (v) there must be an special damage to the plaintiff.

5.    A dead person could not be subject to defamation, however, a criminal prosecution can be brought against the defendant by the relatives of the deceased, where the act of defendant to be considered as defamation, should the dead person was alive.

6.    A corporation can brought an action against defamation, it if fulfills two requirements, those are, (i) the statement is of defamatory nature, had it been directed to any individual; and (ii) the nature and tendency of the statement is to cause actual damages to the corporation with respect to its business and property.

7.    To initiate a defamation proceeding, plaintiff has to claim that a defamatory statement has been made, and he does not need to prove that the statement is wrong against him. The burden of proof is on the defendant to prove that the statement is true. Thus, truth is an absolute defense to any defamation proceeding brought against. As there is no civil proceeding in defamation, if the statement is true.

8.    There are three defenses in defamation for defendant to prove that he is right in his statement, those are, (i) justification of the statement as truth; or (ii) if the statement is a fair and bona fide comment, (there is no liability in case of bona fide comments with respect to the matters of public interests); or (iii) if the defendant keeps such a relation that, had it been written or in a verbal form against someone else, that would have been equivalent to defamation; that defense is also known as ‘privileged occasion’.

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