Day 304 - 22 Nov 96 - Page 19
1 positions of authority within the bodies that were supposed
2 to be responsible for publishing the defamatory articles
3 would indicate that, you know, for an organisation which
4 has no... Well, it is even less applicable to try and pin
5 responsibility on people within a group, or it is even less
6 appropriate to try and pin responsibility on individuals in
7 a group such as London Greenpeace without such -- you know,
8 people who do not have any position of authority.
9
10 Anyway, the court's approach in those cases and in other
11 cases is to require evidence as to who actually published
12 or authorised, and mere membership of the others is not
13 sufficient. Mr. Rampton referred in his application for
14 leave to amend the Statement of Claim to -- well, he was
15 trying to draw an analogy with, if his chambers had printed
16 a leaflet. We would say that that analogy is wrong and, in
17 a situation where his chambers produced a leaflet
18 containing defamatory material, only those learned members
19 that were actually involved or authorised the publication
20 of the defamatory material would be liable. A tenant that
21 was not on the leaflet publishing committee and that had
22 not given his specific authority that the material should
23 be published by another on his behalf would not be liable.
24
25 All the evidence, in particular that given by the agents
26 employed by McDonald's to infiltrate London Greenpeace
27 meetings, and from the Defendants and our witnesses, from
28 all of that, it is obvious that London Greenpeace lacked
29 the essential organisation and infrastructure and mutual
30 undertaking to be even remotely described as an
31 unincorporated association. In the absence of formal or
32 informal mutual undertakings, given the actual nature of
33 the collective, the Plaintiffs' contention that the
34 Defendants caused, procured or authorised the publication
35 of the fact sheet is hopeless, because such notions were
36 entirely contrary to the way that individuals within the
37 group functioned. I.e., there was no hierarchy, and there
38 was no authorisation or telling people what to do.
39
40 Moving on to specific evidence, it is clear from the
41 evidence of all of the witnesses in the case that London
42 Greenpeace was an informal group, that no one was in
43 charge, that there was no obligation or expectation that
44 any individual would take part in any activity or campaign,
45 and that there was no requirement for any individual to
46 obtain the permission of anyone else before pursuing any
47 course of conduct which they felt was appropriate.
48 Furthermore, not everybody was interested in all the
49 campaigns that were run under the banner of London
50 Greenpeace; not everybody who was involved with the group
51 or attended meetings.
52
53 MR. MORRIS: Just before we go on to some of the evidence, if I
54 could make a few extra points.
55
56 MR JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
57
58 MR. MORRIS: About publication going at the end of the case,
59 and I remember that you made a comment fairly early on in
60 the trial about the absurdity, if publication was not
