{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/higher-education-act-2004/section-17",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/higher-education-act-2004/section-17.json",
  "legislation": "ukpga/2004/8",
  "legislation_title": "Higher Education Act 2004",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/higher-education-act-2004",
  "path": "section/17",
  "kind": "section",
  "number": "17",
  "heading": "Privilege in relation to law of defamation",
  "text": "(1) For the purposes of the law of defamation, any proceedings relating to the review under the scheme of a qualifying complaint are to be treated as if they were proceedings before a court.\n(2) For those purposes, absolute privilege attaches to the publication of—\n(a) any decision or recommendation made under the scheme by a person responsible for reviewing a qualifying complaint, and\n(b) any report under paragraph 6 or 7 of Schedule 3.\n(3) In this section “the scheme” means the scheme for the review of qualifying complaints provided by the designated operator.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "type": "I",
      "label": "I1",
      "text": "S. 17 in force for E. at 1.11.2004 by S.I. 2004/2781, art. 2"
    },
    {
      "type": "I",
      "label": "I2",
      "text": "S. 17 in force for W. at 1.12.2004 by S.I. 2004/3144, Sch. Pt. 1"
    }
  ],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/8/section/17",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T09:17:21.361210+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}