People who have a complaint about their treatment by the media will not be able to "ride both horses" of access to the ombudsman and to the courts at the same time, according to the Press Ombudsman, John Horgan.
Speaking at a conference in Trinity College on media law, Prof Horgan said the new structures offered the possibility of quick, fair and free redress by an independent press ombudsman or by a press council with a lay majority.
If legal proceedings have been instituted, the ombudsman and the council would not examine the issue concerned until the proceedings were completed or withdrawn, he said. However, whatever the outcome of a complaint to the new bodies, the complainant would retain the option of legal proceedings.
If either the ombudsman or the council find in favour of a complainant, the newspaper or periodical involved will be required to publish the decision with due prominence, where it would be available for discussion and comment by the general public and by the newspaper's rivals.
Karen Harty, a solicitor with McCann Fitzgerald, told the conference that some of the procedural defects in the present system of defamation litigation were not addressed in the proposed legislation.
Parties have no more than a couple of weeks' notice of hearing dates, which led to counsel dropping out due to other commitments and caused major problems in arranging witnesses, she said.
Parties could turn up on the allotted day and find that they could not get on because there was only one judge. There was a need for greater use of pre-trial applications to allow for legal argument, without keeping a jury waiting.
Case management specifically tailored for the jury list should be introduced to reduce the period of time between issuing claims and hearings, and to deal with discovery motions and appeals.