Day 312 - 11 Dec 96 - Page 27


     
     1        Although they use strong terms, the language was not
     2        excessive.  Finally, the applicant's conviction was capable
     3        of discouraging open discussion of matters of public
     4        concern.  The interference was not, therefore,
     5        proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued, and obviously
     6        this would apply.  Bearing in mind that this
     7        Mr. Thorgeirson was fined for criminal defamation -- I do
     8        not know what, there is the amount given of the fine on the
     9        front page but I do not know what the conversion rate is
    10        for Icelandic Kroner, but I think we can safely assume that
    11        the fine would have been substantially less than the
    12        damages that the Plaintiffs are seeking in this case, and
    13        therefore it must apply that if the damages claimed by the
    14        Plaintiffs are awarded to them that that would be an
    15        interference which was not proportionate to the legitimate
    16        aim being pursued, and not just against us but also under
    17        the terms of deterring other people from feeling able to
    18        make criticisms of McDonald's and other multi-nationals.
    19
    20        The interference is not solely the money, it is also all
    21        the implications for freedom of speech and...  Just, I
    22        mean, knowing that a libel case is going to take even, you
    23        know, a month would deter most people from fighting the
    24        case because they would not be able to take time off work
    25        to do so.  So therefore anybody who does not have the
    26        financial resources to pay for a lawyer, or in any event,
    27        would be deterred from criticising any such multi-national.
    28
    29        Starting on page 862 is the section 2, alleged violations
    30        of article 10.  I do not want to read anything out on that
    31        page, but on page 866.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    34
    35   MR. MORRIS:  Actually --
    36
    37   MS. STEEL:   I do not know whether I have said the date of the
    38        case, but it is 1992.  So that is quite recent.  On
    39        page 866, starting at the second paragraph, this says that
    40        in short the applicant was essentially reporting what was
    41        being said by others about police brutality.  He was
    42        convicted by the Reykjavik criminal courts of an offence of
    43        the penal code partly because of the failure to justify
    44        what it considered to be his own allegations, namely that
    45        unspecified members of the Reykjavik police had committed a
    46        number of acts, a serious assault, resulting in disablement
    47        of their victims as well as forgery and other criminal
    48        offences.
    49
    50        In so far as the applicant was required to establish a
    51        truth of his statements he was, in the court's opinion,
    52        faced with an unreasonable if not impossible task.
    53        Obviously, that is applicable to our case, particularly
    54        given the wide ranging number of statements that we have
    55        had to justify, but obviously the fact that they were not
    56        our criticisms, they were not our statements, they were
    57        all...  Firstly, they were not even London Greenpeace
    58        statements, they were collated by London Greenpeace into
    59        one document, but secondly it is accepted that I was not
    60        the author of the leaflet, and we consider that there is no

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