Are people in the UK jailed for "insulting the Queen"

[UDS]

@madsircool

Its interesting to me that libel is decided before examining truth or any other defense. Seems like its a slight waste of the courts time. Or can these issues be handled through pretrial filings?

This is just an outcome of usual burden of proof rules. The person who is suing has to show that an actionable wrong has been committed - that a statement was published, that the defendant published it, that the statement was such as would lower the plaintiff in the estimation of ordinary people. Only when the burden of proving all that has been discharged does the defendant have to prove anything at all. And then he only has to prove the truth of the statement if that’s the particular defence that he chooses to rely on.

It would be outrageous if the defendant had the burden of proving that a particular statement was true when nobody has yet shown that he ever made the statement.

[madsircool]

@UDS

This is just an outcome of usual burden of proof rules. The person who is suing has to show that an actionable wrong has been committed - that a statement was published, that the defendant published it, that the statement was such as would lower the plaintiff in the estimation of ordinary people. Only when the burden of proving all that has been discharged does the defendant have to prove anything at all. And then he only has to prove the truth of the statement if that’s the particular defence that he chooses to rely on.

It would be outrageous if the defendant had the burden of proving that a particular statement was true when nobody has yet shown that he ever made the statement.

Thank you for the reply. My thoughts were more along the lines that it would take more court time (and expense) when (after an action is brought) the defendants sorry not sure if it would be the soliciter or barrister could file a motion with the court outlining the truthfulness of the statements without having to actually have a hearing. If the defendants evidence is enough to meet the courts standard of truth then the case could be dismissed. Sorry to meddle in your legal system. :o

[Colophon]

You can even do it on the BBC with impunity.

[SanVito]

@Ibn_Warraq

While on vacation recently a friend claimed that it was “illegal” in the UK to “insult the Queen” so it was hypocritical for people in the UK to criticize Turkey’s banning of “insulting Turkishness”?

I don’t know where people get this nonsense. You can say what you like about royals.

[Malden_Capell]

I’d be interested to hear OP’s friend’s response when being corrected about such a misrepresentation!

[JustinC]

@Colophon

You can even do it on the BBC with impunity.

That was the exact reference I was going to use.

“The Queen’s so old, her vagina’s haunted.”

[Donnerwetter]

Insulting (“defamation of”) the German President is punishable by up to 5 years in prison under section 90 of the German Criminal Code. Very rarely prosecuted, but it does happen.

[septimus]

@Monty

Heck, I’m gobsmacked at how the Thais treat the Thai royal family. That family really seems to have done a whole lot of nothing to earn the respect shown to them. IMHO, Thailand’s royal family is the sole reason for the lèse-majesté law there–to keep legitimate criticism of the joke that family is from being aired in public. Thailand is the country in the most need of getting rid of royalty, but it’ll never happen thanks to that vicious law.

Cite? Certainly news coverage of the Royals here is, by law, universally favorable but it doesn’t necessarily follow that a lot of bad news is being covered up. Here’s a list of awards (Stanford’s Woman of the Year etc.) given to the Queen by foreign agencies, not sycophantic Thais. Each member of the Royal family should be judged on his/her own merits and the King’s only son is widely criticised; is there some specific allegation against some other Royal I don’t know about?

Certainly there are admirable works that can be pointed to. Although, like Britain’s Queen, he’s a Constitutional Monarch with no direct governmental power, His Majesty’s resolution of the 1992 crisis was impressive.

[SciFiSam]

If it were true then millions of people would be in jail. I think I saw about thirty posts yesterday (the day she became our longest-ever reigning monarch) mocking the Queen, and that’s just on Facebook. And today I went to a shop that had a load of badges with pictures of the Queen on and slogans like “you’re poor? hahaha!” and one of Harry with something or other about Hewitt.

I had coincidentally also made a Hewitt-Harry related joke earlier the same day even though I don’t actually believe the rumours. And I’m not in jai

[SanVito]

@SciFiSam

And I’m not in jai

Uh Oh, perhaps** SciFiSam** spoke too soon and MI5 have snatched her away from her keyboard.

[madsircool]

@Donnerwetter

Insulting (“defamation of”) the German President is punishable by up to 5 years in prison under section 90 of the German Criminal Code. Very rarely prosecuted, but it does happen.

Only the President and not the PM? Im surprised this made it into the GCC seeing how it could be misused by the wrong President.

[Leo_Bloom]

I can’t remember where I read it, but it was something said in one of the London dailies, or it was a Fleet Street-wide expression: “banging the Germans,” meaning getting dirt on the [Del]Sax-Coburg-Gotha[/del] Windsors.

[Donnerwetter]

@madsircool

Only the President and not the PM? Im surprised this made it into the GCC seeing how it could be misused by the wrong President.

The President of Germany is nominally the head of state, but it is mostly (though not entirely) a ceremonial function. Historically, Section 90 of the German Criminal Code is a remnant from the days when lèse-majesté was a crime in the monarchy where the Kaiser or King was head of state.

[The_Angry_Badger]

With all the above in mind, I have to wonder what would happen if you insulted the Queen to her face? As in, you directly told her she was a miserable, stuck up bitch?

That would probably hurt your chances of making the honours list, and you most likely wouldn’t get invited to any more royal events But, anything else? As mentioned upthread, it’s not really a criminal offence as related to her position, but what about as a human being? Could that be considered some sort of verbal assault? Breach of the peace, maybe? Bearing in mind, it’s not a threat, just an insult, but you can almost guarantee if they can find a crime to charge you with then they would.

[SanVito]

@The_Angry_Badger

With all the above in mind, I have to wonder what would happen if you insulted the Queen to her face? As in, you directly told her she was a miserable, stuck up bitch?

That would probably hurt your chances of making the honours list, and you most likely wouldn’t get invited to any more royal events But, anything else? As mentioned upthread, it’s not really a criminal offence as related to her position, but what about as a human being? Could that be considered some sort of verbal assault? Breach of the peace, maybe? Bearing in mind, it’s not a threat, just an insult, but you can almost guarantee if they can find a crime to charge you with then they would.

The Queen doesn’t get special laws just for herself. Insulting the Queen to her face would be the same as insulting the US president to his face. Not going to win you prizes with the security cards standing nearby, but she isn’t going to chop your head off.

[Donnerwetter]

A case from the Netherlands:

In October 2007, a 47-year-old man was sentenced to one week imprisonment and fined €400 for, amongst other things, lèse-majesté in the Netherlands when he called Queen Beatrix a “whore” and told a police officer that he would have anal sex with her because “she would like it”.

[The_Angry_Badger]

@SanVito

The Queen doesn’t get special laws just for herself. Insulting the Queen to her face would be the same as insulting the US president to his face. Not going to win you prizes with the security cards standing nearby, but she isn’t going to chop your head off.

Granted, and you’d possibly also be hauled off for a questioning by her security detail (and maybe ‘fall down the stairs’ on the way ), but I don’t think they could really do much otherwise - unless you’d said something that fell foul of one of the various hate speech laws.

It’d be almost worth it to see the looks on everyone’s faces though.

[Northern_Piper]

There is an offence of alarming the Queen, but that’s not in the sense of insulting - it’s a special type of assault. The genesis of the offence was when a guy tried to take some potshots at Queen Victoria with a pistol.

The entire text (mid-Victorian parliamentese, I’m afraid):

[QUOTE=Treason Act, 1842]
Punishment for discharging or aiming fire-arms, or throwing or using any offensive matter or weapon, with intent to injure or alarm her Majesty.

**2[/B If any person shall wilfully discharge or attempt to discharge, or point, aim, or present at or near to the person of the Queen, any gun, pistol, or any other description of fire-arms or of other arms whatsoever, whether the same shall or shall not contain any explosive or destructive material, or shall discharge or cause to be discharged, or attempt to discharge or cause to be discharged, any explosive substance or material near to the person of the Queen, or if any person shall wilfully strike or strike at, or attempt to strike or to strike at, the person of the Queen, with any offensive weapon, or in any other manner whatsoever, or if any person shall wilfully throw or attempt to throw any substance, matter, or thing whatsoever at or upon the person of the Queen, with intent in any of the cases aforesaid to injure the person of the Queen, or with intent in any of the cases aforesaid to break the public peace, or whereby the public peace may be endangered, or with intent in any of the cases aforesaid to alarm her Majesty, or if any person shall, near to the person of the Queen, wilfully produce or have any gun, pistol, or any other description of fire-arms or other arms whatsoever, or any explosive, destructive, or dangerous matter or thing whatsoever, with intent to use the same to injure the person of the Queen, or to alarm her Majesty, every such person so offending shall be guilty of a high misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof in due course of law, shall be liable, at the discretion of the court before which the said person shall be so convicted, to be transported beyond the seas for the term of seven years, or to be imprisoned,
[/QUOTE]

[The_Angry_Badger]

@Northern_Piper

There is an offence of alarming the Queen, but that’s not in the sense of insulting - it’s a special type of assault. The genesis of the offence was when a guy tried to take some potshots at Queen Victoria with a pistol.

The entire text (mid-Victorian parliamentese, I’m afraid):

Hmm, that seems to be more about waving a gun or other weapon around at her. If you were daft enough to try that in this day and age, I expect they could trot out a whole series of laws to charge you(r bullet ridden corpse) with.

FYI, I looked up the rest of the act (as originally drafted, the last couple of bits have since been repealed):

…to be transported beyond the Seas for the Term of Seven Years, or to be imprisoned, with or without hard Labour, for any Period not exceeding Three Years, and during the Period of such Imprisonment to be publicly or privately whipped, as often and in such Manner and Form as the said Court shall order and direct, not exceeding Thrice.

So, you either get sent to Australia (I’m assuming that’s what ‘beyond the Seas’ means - Australia was still a penal colony at the time), or thrown in jail for up to three years and whipped. Nice.

[Captain_Amazing]

@madsircool

Truth is an absolute defense against defamation, no?

Actually, no. Well, it’s a defense against civil libel, but back when the crime of seditious libel existed in English law, truth wasn’t a defense against it. Here was the definition of seditious libel in English common law (taken from Stephen’s Digest of the Criminal Law, 1887):

Sedition consists of any act done, or words spoken or written and published which (i) has or have a seditious tendency and (ii) is done or are spoken or written and published with a seditious intent. A person may be said to have a seditious intent if he has any of the following intentions, and acts or words may be said to have a seditious tendency if they have any of the following tendencies: an intention or tendency to bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection against the person of, Her Majesty, her heirs or successors, or the government and constitution of the United Kingdom, as by law established, or either House of Parliament, or the administration of justice, or to excite Her Majesty’s subjects to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, the alteration of any matter in Church or State by law established, [or to incite any person to commit any crime in disturbance of the peace] or to raise discontent or disaffection among Her Majesty’s subjects, or to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between difference classes of such subjects.