On a case which, having worked its way from a
Judge in Chambers to the Court of Appeal, may yet move on to the House of Lords •
anything like extensive comment would be improper. But the issues raised in the case Krajina v. Tass Agency are too important to pass unnoticed. The facts are simple. M. Vladimir Krajina, a distin- guished Czech scientist who played a notable part in the resistance movement during German occupation, who lives in London, con- ceived himself to have been libelled in a publication for which the Tass Agency was responsible, and desired to bring an action against it. But Mr. Justice Birkett, in Chambers, ruled that no action would lie, on the ground that the Tass Agency is an organ of the U.S.S.R. and as such not subject to the jurisdiction of the Courts in this country. That ruling the Court of Appeal has sustained in a hearing which ended on Monday. This then is the law unless the House of Lords upsets it. Does that mean that the Tass Agency is free to libel any citizen of this country as much as it likes, and that the victim will have no redress ? It can hardly mean anything else. And if so, what now ?
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