Witness to the Justice Committee on the Defamation and Malicious Publications (Scotland) Bill: "Given that England and Wales now has a statutory defence it does make sense for Scotland to be on the same page as our nearest neighbors (...) If we don't reform our defamation law

in line with England and Wales then there is a danger of not having up to date case law." Why? I'm not saying that E&W hasn't gone the right way or that we would be wrong not to replicate them, but why just because E&W has done something must Scotland follow? The Anglicisation of

Scots law is something that crops up in my mind every so often. It has again thanks to @SartorialOrator's interesting piece in the SLT on this Bill. Is "England has done it" necessarily a good enough justification for a particular reform to Scots private law? Also, how does not

adopting the same statutory defence mean that we lack up-to-date case law?