Miscellaneous provisions

I1I218Protection from actions of defamation

1

For the purposes of the law of defamation—

a

any statement made to the Commissioner has absolute privilege,

b

any statement in the Commissioner’s report on an investigation has absolute privilege,

c

any other statement made by the Commissioner has qualified privilege.

2

In this section—

a

a reference to a statement being made to or by the Commissioner—

i

includes a statement being made to or by (as the case may be) a member of the Commissioner’s staff,

ii

does not include a statement made to or by (as the case may be) an individual when the individual is not acting in the individual’s capacity as the Commissioner or a member of the Commissioner’s staff,

b

“statement” has the same meaning as in the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021.