Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I have a degree of sympathy with the position that a lodgement should either imply or include an expression of apology or of amends. That would be essential. However, let us remove this from the realm of libel and consider it in the context of another case where people are making claims against each other for injury, accident or the like. The court decides at what point one party has acted reasonably and the other party has begun to act unreasonably. People, along with their legal advisers, must make the judgment as to whether they should risk pursuing the case the rest of the way. It is unreasonable to say to one party in a case that its costs will be covered, regardless of how unreasonable it is and even though the court has said it is unreasonable, or where the other party has acted reasonably at that point and the first party has accepted it. We need to find a middle way. One cannot give an assurance to one party in a case, whether it is libel or any other type of case, that its costs will be always met.