Day 312 - 11 Dec 96 - Page 23


     
     1        additional burdens of proof for us to show in the words
     2        complained of, it does imply that they are submitting that
     3        they, as a Corporation, are equivalent to a human being
     4        that has a morality or a conscience or ethics, or anything
     5        like that, and we would submit that the effect of this
     6        paragraph, say, and preceding paragraphs, is that they
     7        cannot act like a person, they cannot be damaged in the
     8        same way as a human being, and they have to show, they
     9        cannot interpret the words in that they cannot be
    10        defamatory of a corporation to say that they are
    11        unconscionable because they do not have a conscience, they
    12        only have, you know, basic business practices, and they
    13        would have to show that it damaged those practices in a
    14        specific way.
    15
    16   MS. STEEL:   Number 6: in this respect the Defendants submit
    17        that the arrangement that the Plaintiffs made with Veggies
    18        is of fundamental importance.  Under that arrangement the
    19        Plaintiffs agree to allow Veggies to publish a version of
    20        the fact sheet which is complained of in this case and they
    21        should not now be permitted to claim that the self same
    22        words contained in the fact sheet complained of in this
    23        case entitles them to compensation; on the contrary, it is
    24        fair and proper for the court to assume that the
    25        Plaintiffs, having seen and considered the Veggies
    26        document, were content for its publication to continue,
    27        albeit with minor variations, precisely because it
    28        considered its contents to be justified or to be not such
    29        as to damage the Plaintiffs' trading reputation.  In any
    30        event, the Plaintiffs cannot have it both ways; either the
    31        Veggies leaflet has caused them no loss, in which case the
    32        fact sheet complained of in this action can hardly have
    33        caused them loss either, or the Veggies leaflet has caused
    34        loss but with their agreement, and that as a result of that
    35        that loss is now indistinguishable from any further alleged
    36        loss caused by the London Greenpeace fact sheet that we are
    37        being sued over.
    38
    39        Most notably on this point, the Plaintiffs now say that the
    40        nutrition section of the fact sheet is the most damaging to
    41        their reputation.  Yet they made no complaint whatsoever in
    42        relation to this part of the Veggies leaflet, and that
    43        includes the fact that they did not make any complaint of
    44        the satirical cartoon and banner headlines.  Obviously, as
    45        you are aware, the context of the nutrition section of the
    46        leaflet was exactly the same in the Veggies fact sheet as
    47        in the London Greenpeace one.
    48
    49        No 7.  The Defendants further submit that the court should
    50        have recourse to the European Convention on Human Rights in
    51        arriving at its judgment.  Libel is a common law concept
    52        and the Defendants submit so far as possible all
    53        substantive and procedural rules and principles of libel
    54        applied in this case should be interpreted and applied in
    55        conformity with the European Convention on Human Rights.
    56
    57        No 8.  In particular, the rules that in order to make out
    58        the defence of justification a defendant must prove the
    59        substantial truth of every material fact.  This rule should
    60        be disapplied in this case, for three reasons: one, that

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