Day 312 - 11 Dec 96 - Page 19


     
     1   MS. STEEL:   And also, on their own claim that the leaflet was
     2        distributed on 16th October 1989 outside Head Office, if
     3        they had brought proceedings soon after that it would have
     4        meant it was easier to gather evidence and track specific
     5        witnesses to counter the Plaintiffs' assertions.
     6
     7   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, I mean, that is one of the points we are
     8        making from this.  In the light of the above points, those
     9        five points, it has been impossible due to the passage of
    10        time for the Defendants to gather substantial amounts of
    11        material relevant to the publication issue, and other
    12        issues, regarding research, contacting witnesses for the
    13        relevant years, et cetera, and also, of course, to obtain
    14        discovery from the Plaintiffs related to the relevant time.
    15
    16        Point 10.  Further, we submit that the Plaintiffs, by their
    17        agreement with Veggies Limited over the continued
    18        distribution of the London Greenpeace fact sheet, with
    19        minimal changes to the words complained of, guarantee the
    20        continued circulation of the words complained of before,
    21        during and after the current action.  There can, therefore,
    22        be no proper or continuing legal basis for the current
    23        action in accordance with the spirit of the defamation
    24        laws.  That is, we would say, an abuse of procedure.
    25
    26        Point 11: the wide range of non-defamatory and/or
    27        "every-day" criticisms contained in the words complained
    28        of and in the Statement of Claim, for example the nature of
    29        Mcjobs, existence of environment/index.html">litter, poor quality foods, links
    30        between diet and disease, advertising and being unethical,
    31        et cetera, are all part of the fabric of valued public
    32        opinion and criticism and should not be subjected to a
    33        libel action and judgment; on the contrary, the right to
    34        hold such opinions, whether true or false, I would add,
    35        without fear of writs, should be robustly protected.  This
    36        has been the main cause for the oppressive and inconvenient
    37        link and scope of this case.
    38
    39        I mean, the Plaintiffs could have decided, or could have
    40        been ordered, not to take up...  The bulk of this case has
    41        been about what we would call basic common sense and
    42        matters of valued opinion, in fact all of it we could
    43        argue, but we submit that the extensive the legal attack by
    44        the Plaintiffs on almost the entirety of the issues raised
    45        in the fact sheet shows the clear political nature of their
    46        legal strategy.
    47
    48        Their strategy seems to have been that they were seeking to
    49        use the court case as a show trial against people they
    50        thought would be, they were convinced would be, unable to
    51        defend themselves and,, having successfully denied the
    52        Defendants a jury trial, were aiming for a quick judgment
    53        which on 21st December 1993 they had forecast as there
    54        would be a three to four week trial which would publicly be
    55        used by them to vindicate their corporate image, i.e. they
    56        were seeing the court case as another tool for their global
    57        publicity directed at the public.
    58
    59        The result would be, if they were to be successful in this,
    60        or if they had have been successful in what they originally

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