The tort, or civil wrong, of defamation is concerned with protecting an individual’s (or indeed, corporate entity’s) reputation from unjust attacks. The right to a good name is constitutionally guaranteed and, as such, the State must protect and vindicate this right.
There are many ways in which an individual can be defamed. Traditionally, unjust attacks on reputation in written form where known as libel, while slander described defamatory remarks made in spoken or other transient form. That distinction has since been abolished and both categories now go under the umbrella of defamation.
YOUR GOOD NAME
The right of an individual to his/her good name and reputation is jealously guarded but so too is the constitutional right to freedom of expression.
When these two rights come into conflict, defamation litigation arises. This most commonly occurs when media publications print stories that have a detrimental effect on an individual’s reputation. However, not all material – however offensive it may be to the party concerned – will be considered defamatory by the courts