The Short Title of this Act is “The Criminal Code Amendment Act, 1901”; and it shall form part of and be read together with “The Criminal Code Act, 1893.”

A defamatory libel is matter published, without legal justification or excuse, either designed to insult any person or likely to injure his reputation by exposing him to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or likely to injure him in his profession or trade, whether such matter be expressed in words, written or printed, or legibly marked on any substance or by any object signifying such matter otherwise than by words, and whether expressed directly or by insinuation or irony.

Publishing a defamatory libel is—

Exhibiting it in public; or

Causing it to be read or seen; or

Showing or delivering it, or causing it to be shown or delivered, with a view to its being read or seen by any person other than the person defamed.

A person does not commit a crime by publishing defamatory matter on the invitation or challenge of the person defamed thereby, or if it is necessary to publish it in order to refute some other defamatory statement published by the last-mentioned person concerning the alleged offender, if such defamatory matter is believed to be true, and is relevant to the invitation, challenge, or the required refutation, and the publishing does not in manner or extent exceed what is reasonably sufficient for the occasion.

An information for an alleged defamatory Libel shall be taken before a Stipendiary Magistrate only.

No criminal prosecution for defamatory libel shall be commenced, if in the Supreme Court, without the order of a Judge of that Court, or, if under “The Justices of the Peace Act, 1882,” without the order of a Stipendiary Magistrate.

Notice of the intention to apply for such order shall be given to the person accused, who shall have an opportunity of being heard against such application.

Every person accused of publishing a defamatory libel may plead that the defamatory matter published by him was true, and that it was for the public benefit that the matters charged should be published in the manner and at the time when they were published.

Such plea may justify the defamatory matter in the sense specified (if any) in the indictment, or in the sense which the defamatory matter bears without any such specification; or separate pleas justifying the defamatory matter in each sense may be pleaded separately to each, as if two libels had been charged in separate counts.

Such plea shall be in writing, and set forth the particular’ fact or facts by reason of which it was for the public good that such matter should be so published.

The prosecutor may reply generally denying the truth thereof.

The truth of the matters charged in an alleged libel shall in no case be inquired into without such plea of justification, unless the accused is put upon his trial upon any indictment or information charging him with publishing the libel knowing the same to be false, in which case evidence of the truth may be given in order to negative the allegation that the accused knew the libel to be false.

The accused may, in addition to such plea, plead not guilty; and such pleas shall be inquired of together.

No such plea of justification as is herein provided for shall be pleaded to any indictment or count so far as it charges a libel to be a seditious or blasphemous or obscene libel.

If when such plea of justification is pleaded the accused is convicted, the Court may, in pronouncing sentence, consider whether his guilt is aggravated or mitigated by the plea.

If when such plea of justification is pleaded the issue is found against the accused, the prosecutor shall be entitled to recover from the accused the costs sustained by the prosecutor by reason of such plea.

If the accused is acquitted he shall be entitled to recover from the prosecutor, if a private person, the costs sustained by him by reason of such prosecution, inclusive of the costs (if any) incurred in the Court which granted the information.

The costs so to be recovered by the accused or prosecutor respectively shall be taxed by the proper officer of the Court before which the indictment or information is tried.

Every person is liable—

To five years’ imprisonment, with hard labour, who publishes, or threatens to publish, or offers to abstain from publishing, a defamatory libel, with intent to extort money, or to induce any person to confer upon or procure for any person any appointment or office of profit or trust or business, or in consequence of being refused any such money, appointment, office, or business:

Every person who publishes any defamatory libel is liable to one year’s imprisonment with hard labour, or, if he knows such defamatory libel to be false, to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour.

So much of the Ordinance passed by the Legislative Council of New Zealand in the eighth year of the reign of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, and numbered eight, as refers to an Imperial Act, 6 and 7 Victoria, cap. 96, intituled “An Act to amend the Law respecting Defamatory Words and Libel” is hereby repealed.