Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 51
1 drafts, with executives of the company present at meetings,
2 to produce what is effectively a scurrilous, vicious and
3 untrue document against two members of the public who have
4 absolutely no protection in that situation.
5
6 If that can be justified as privileged self-defence, then
7 basically it is fair game for anybody to do it any time.
8 They would have to show that everybody who got the leaflets
9 or got the press release had a direct interest to have that
10 specific communication, because they no doubt would have
11 got a copy of the fact sheet from us at some previous
12 recent time, so much so that they would have to be
13 corrected by McDonald's literature. And they chose to
14 bring this case and therefore, as Ms. Steel said, they
15 cannot complain that they there will be public or press
16 interest. In fact, public and press interest, we would
17 say, is clearly protected -- in fact it is the press that
18 has the privileged protection to report upon matters
19 relating to a public court case, and the law protects the
20 press in that matter.
21
22 We would say also political debate and public debate over a
23 matter of public interest such as a trial such as this is
24 necessarily protected and should not be inhibited or
25 attacked, as we believe that the effect of the McDonald's
26 press release is to do. We believe that the effect of that
27 press release to the press was to serve as a warning to the
28 press that the allegations made by the Defendants would be
29 lies and, therefore, if they were to cover them then they
30 might leave themselves open to legal action. In fact, any
31 number of people of the media have told us that they are
32 frightened to cover the issues in this case -----
33
34 MR. RAMPTON: I thought Mr. Morris decided not to give
35 evidence.
36
37 MR. MORRIS: That is just a fact, I am saying here and now.
38
39 MR JUSTICE BELL: You should have gone into the witness box and
40 given evidence about it if that was to be part of your
41 case. It is not right to declare it as part of a speech.
42
43 MR. MORRIS: Well, it is just a fact. If McDonald's are going
44 to -- this is another point. So, yes; is the response
45 legitimate? We say it is not a response, there was no
46 attack, there was are appropriate ways of McDonald's being
47 able to put over their point of view.
48
49 Is the actual document a legitimate document? We have to
50 look at the character of what is put in it.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let us break it down a bit.
53
54 MR. MORRIS: There is the character.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause. You say there was not an
57 attack, and there was not a response. If that was correct,
58 that would be the end of the matter. So if you are going
59 on to say was it legitimate, assume just for the same of
60 your next argument that there was an attack and this was a
