The Gov­ern­ment has been very keen to trum­pet, on the oc­ca­sion of World Press Free­dom Day, its abo­li­tion of Sec­tion 9 of the li­bel and defama­tion law.This is tout­ed as a com­mit­ment to press free­dom in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the amend­ment it­self, an im­por­tant in­di­ca­tor of of­fi­cial en­dorse­ment of that prin­ci­ple.

Both Al­li­son Bethel-McKen­zie, di­rec­tor of the In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute, and pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean Me­dia Work­ers Wes­ley Gib­bings were present to lend weight to the im­port of the an­nounce­ment.It was just a year ago that Ms Bethel-McKen­zie was in T&T for the 60th In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute (IPI) World Con­gress and Con­fer­ence held in June 2012 at the Hy­att Re­gency.

The IPI was then ex­press­ing con­cern about the ad­ver­sar­i­al po­si­tion that the Gov­ern­ment had fo­ment­ed with me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers. That was al­so a year in which the na­tion man­aged to drop a whop­ping 20 places on the World Press Free­dom In­dex and T&T de­scribed as a coun­try "scarred by a case of gov­ern­ment spy­ing on jour­nal­ists."By the time of the IPI Con­gress in 2012, the Gov­ern­ment was ea­ger to demon­strate just how com­mit­ted it was to prin­ci­ples of press free­dom and the hounds of in­tim­i­da­tion were muz­zled.

Ms Bethel-McKen­zie made it her busi­ness to re­turn to T&T for World Press Free­dom Day last week and the Gov­ern­ment made sure to de­liv­er on its promise to the IPI to ad­dress its li­bel laws.

Sec­tion 9 of the Li­bel and Defama­tion Act levied crim­i­nal charges and pros­e­cu­tion for ma­li­cious pub­li­ca­tion of defam­a­to­ry li­bel. Over the 167 years that the act has been on T&T law books, it has nev­er been in­voked, but its re­moval is an over­due ac­knowl­edge­ment by the Gov­ern­ment of the chill­ing ef­fect that un­nec­es­sary leg­is­la­tion can have on the re­port­ing process. Un­der Sec­tion 8, cit­i­zens can still seek re­dress for the know­ing and ma­li­cious pub­li­ca­tion of li­bel­lous in­for­ma­tion.

The re­moval of Sec­tion 9 doesn't ex­empt jour­nal­ists, or any­one tak­ing on the role of re­porter or com­men­ta­tor in non­tra­di­tion­al me­dia, from pros­e­cu­tion if it can be proven that they have en­gaged in know­ing and de­lib­er­ate defama­tion.Ki­ran Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent of the T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, not­ed that the de­ci­sion to amend the law "is proof we can get it done."

The suc­cess­ful re­moval of Sec­tion 9 shouldn't dis­tract me­dia man­agers and prac­ti­tion­ers from the need to keep press­ing the Gov­ern­ment on amend­ments that are need­ed for a Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act that doesn't lim­it jour­nal­is­tic free­doms and the need for whis­tle-blow­er leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect both those will­ing to in­form and those with whom that in­for­ma­tion is shared.

Both are re­quired to en­sure the prac­ti­cal preser­va­tion of the free­dom of the press that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar so en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly trum­pet­ed on World Press Free­dom Day as an ap­peal­ing and pow­er­ful char­ac­ter­is­tic of T&T so­ci­ety.

A free press is not mea­sured by the num­ber of me­dia hous­es work­ing in this coun­try, but by the de­gree to which re­porters are able to find the truth of their sto­ries unim­ped­ed by laws and le­gal screens which favour a lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in pub­lic of­fice and pri­vate en­ter­prise.