In the decade since the Human Rights Act secured parliamentary approval it has won few friends in the media. Tarnished by Michael Howard as a "charter for chancers", the act has been the subject of countless newspaper stories in which the guilty are treated well at the expense of the innocent. Tales abound about the rights of rapists, paedophiles, asylum seekers and hate preachers, while the day-to-day work of the act in securing decent treatment for old people, the young, the infirm, the mentally ill and other law-abiding citizens is ignored.

This constant drip-feed of negative coverage, even when shown to be false or based on a misunderstanding of the law, has led even the government to consider the future of the Human Rights Act, with the publication yesterday of a green paper on rights and responsibilities that may lead ultimately to the act's replacement by a new bill of rights.

Why does the Human Rights Act get such a bad press? Is this negative coverage motivated by political, ideological or commercial considerations? In last night's English PEN debate at Kings Place, I asked Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, Sir Christopher Meyer, chair of the Press Complaints Commission and Anthony Lester QC – Lord Lester of Herne Hill – the act's architect, "Why do the media hate the Human Rights Act?"

For Lester, the answer is simple: the media did not get the act they wanted, and they've rebelled against it ever since. When the Human Rights Act was going through parliament, the media lobbied hard for total immunity. Instead, they got Section 12, which simply reminds the courts of the importance of freedom of expression and asks judges to pay attention to the press Code of Practice (the so-called "voluntary code") when balancing free speech against privacy claims. Lester blames this in part for the media's hostility to the act more generally, while acknowledging that the act's European provenance has always raised the public's hackles. "All of this was seen as a top-down liberal conspiracy by people like me," he said.

Lester went on to say that the Human Rights Act does now need to be replaced with a central document that the British public can believe in, though he was unimpressed by the government's first moves in this direction in yesterday's green paper.

In the view of Christopher Meyer, Section 12 gave judges the impression that they should be interpreting the voluntary code themselves, thereby usurping the role of the Press Complaints Commission and compromising the very nature of self-regulation. Meyer called for the amendment of Section 12 to reflect the PCC's own "jurisprudence" in this area, so that the press could be free to set its own balance. Otherwise, he argued, the judiciary takes on the role of regulator and the crucial independence of the press is lost. He cited the case of Max Moseley as an example of the judiciary making inroads in this respect.

Rusbridger challenged Meyer to say how the PCC would have adjudicated differently, had Moseley chosen to bring his case to them rather than going to court. Meyer would not be drawn on this. Lester also reminded him of the need for the PCC to be tough on press abuses if its regulatory role was to be credible.

Satchwell compared Britain's tight restrictions on free speech unfavourably with the more liberal American regime under the First Amendment. He suggested that the role of the press was to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" and that any negative coverage of the act was simply motivated by public concern and examples of misuse that brought the act into disrepute.

Rusbridger agreed that free speech was threatened in the UK, but suggested that many journalists were simply resistant to all oversight. Noting that the judges who came in for so much abuse from newspaper editors were "just doing their job", he also stated that the Human Rights Act had not been helpful enough to the press, failing to resolve issues around civil libel law, which continued to impose a chill on critical reporting. He cited an instance of prior restraint, in which the Guardian had been prevented from posting, or even signposting, documents relating to financial structures at Barclays. He agreed that there was a need for a new bill of rights, nominating Lester to draft it immediately.

When I put the Moseley case to an audience vote, not a single hand went up in support of the News of the World, and the audience was unanimous that there was no public interest defence for the invasion of Moseley's privacy. As one audience member commented, it's no surprise that there's no support for the press when they run stories like this.

Press freedom is absolutely essential to democracy. State control – whether through parliament, the executive, or the courts – subjects the press to oversight that can hamper freedom of expression more generally. At English PEN we see this, in those many states that still use laws of sedition or criminal libel to silence critical reporting of government. However, free media clearly need to be responsible media if they are to command the public trust that is also necessary in an engaged democracy. And this means effective self-regulation – something that last night's audience clearly believed to be missing from the current framework.