Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 59


     
     1
     2        Can I also point out, on the subject of lies, that
     3        Mr. Pocklington said on day 263, page 46:  "Did you get the
     4        impression that people believed in the views that they
     5        expressed?"  This is people at London Greenpeace meetings.
     6        Answer:  "Yes, I would say that most people believed in
     7        what they were expressing."  Question:  "And that they
     8        believed the material they were circulating was true?"
     9        Answer:  "Yes, I never heard anything to suggest
    10        otherwise."  "I never heard anything to suggest otherwise",
    11        emphasise "suggest".  Question:  "That went for me and
    12        Helen, from what you remember of us?"  Answer:  "Yes, yes."
    13          That was on page 46, let alone five or six years later
    14        after the extremely substantial preparations for this
    15        trial.
    16
    17        Do not forget that Mr. Beavers said that all the criticisms
    18        in the London Greenpeace fact sheet were in the public
    19        domain to some extent in the USA, which would, we believe,
    20        rule out a case of this kind being brought in the USA, and
    21        we would certainly pray that in aid in terms of it cannot
    22        be said to be lies unless it can be shown that we -- that
    23        they are positively untrue and we believed they were
    24        untrue.
    25
    26        Nothing had been made up in the London Greenpeace fact
    27        sheet in terms of -- nothing had been fabricated or even
    28        written by us, in fact, let alone fabricated.
    29
    30        I did touch on this and it may not automatically fit into
    31        the framework which you approached this matter, but I think
    32        it is an important point which may relate to how the law is
    33        developing in this country about the protection on
    34        political criticism, that, for example, the removal of the
    35        right to sue for libel by governmental organisations and we
    36        are going to be bringing evidence about how that has been
    37        extended and will be further extended under European
    38        legislation.
    39
    40   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   You do not mean what you actually said.
    41
    42   MS. STEEL:   Legal submissions.
    43
    44   MR. MORRIS:   --- bring in submissions.  That is one of our
    45        submissions that we are going to make.  But, in terms of
    46        this particular counterclaim and the privileged
    47        self-defence, here we have a multi-national corporation, or
    48        the UK subsidiary, claiming for itself what, indeed, we are
    49        claiming should be the case in terms of the protection of
    50        political criticism made by the public against powerful and 
    51        public bodies who have chosen to be in the spotlight; and 
    52        we would say that our case is much more compelling, and it 
    53        is interesting that they have used this privileged
    54        self-defence argument which we were going to raise in -- we
    55        will raise it -- in writing.
    56
    57   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   In relation to a what?
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:   That society has a privileged right to criticise
    60        and protect itself from bodies such as multi-nationals who

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