Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 38
1 typing -- and whether or not they have heard or seen
2 evidence to prove each particular sentence.
3
4 This is best expressed by Lord Diplock in the same case at
5 page 150 C where he says: "In ordinary life it is rare
6 indeed for people to perform their beliefs by a process of
7 logical deduction from facts ascertained by a rigorous
8 search for all available evidence and a judicial assessment
9 of its probative value." The last part of that, which
10 I have underlined, is the part we consider to be important
11 when considering whether or not we were motivated by
12 malice.
13
14 8: in view of the fact that it has been accepted by Mr.
15 Beavers, for example, from the First Plaintiff, that all of
16 the criticisms in the fact sheet had been made by others on
17 various occasions both prior to and since the
18 London Greenpeace facts sheet, it is only reasonable to
19 assume that the Defendants believed the fact sheet was
20 true. Obviously that is on top of everything else that we
21 have put to you already.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
24
25 MS. STEEL: Just another general point on this. It comes in in
26 a number of ways, actually, but I bring it up here. If
27 people are concerned about rainforests destruction, and, I
28 mean, this goes for the public or campaigners, and if
29 McDonald's are involved it would not matter whether or not
30 it was direct involvement or indirect involvement; whether
31 it was for imported use only, or export; whether or not
32 lethal poisons had been used or whether it had been done
33 with chainsaws the public would not differentiate between
34 rain and tropical forests. They are not going to say,
35 fine, destroy tropical forests just not rainforests,
36 whatever. The point is the sting being that they are
37 responsible for destruction of rain or tropical forests,
38 and it is not going to make any difference as to whether or
39 not they themselves did it or were responsible for causing
40 it through their use of the beef.
41
42 Effectively, I mean, in terms of this part about malice, it
43 is clear that we believed that the sting of those sections
44 of the leaflet is that McDonald's are responsible for those
45 things, and it would therefore have to be shown that we
46 thought it would make any material difference whether
47 McDonald's own or have control over -- and 'have control
48 over' is actually Mr. Rampton's words from his submissions,
49 in paragraph 1.3 of the rainforests section -- land or
50 whether the deforestation is carried out by them or on
51 their behalf or is, instead, a causal factor in the supply
52 chain which resulted in the stated social or ecological
53 effect.
54
55 There was a question raised about our conduct in court, and
56 we would say that our conduct in court is in fact
57 consistent with good faith and a genuine belief in-----
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are we on matters of law or malice now? Or
60 are you just arguing the question of whether there was
