Court: Activists Didn't Get Fair Trial

The Strasbourg, France-based court said David Morris and Helen Steel should have received legal aid from the British government when they were tried in what became widely known as the "McLibel" case, the longest in English history.

The two activists passed out flyers in 1984 that claimed the U.S.-based company was selling unhealthy food, was to blame for starvation in the Third World, and was destroying rainforests.

The European Court threw out a British court's 1997 guilty verdict, also saying English law unfairly had put the burden of proof on the defendants to justify every word in the leaflets they distributed but didn't write. The court awarded Morris and Steel damages of $25,934 and $19,451, respectively.

The British government has three months to appeal.

In London, Morris and Steel said in a statement they hoped the European court's ruling would "result in greater public scrutiny and criticism of powerful organizations whose practices have a detrimental effect on society and the environment."

"The McLibel campaign has already proved that determined and widespread grass-roots protest and defiance can undermine those who try to silence their critics, and also render oppressive laws unworkable," the statement said.

Morris, 50, and Steel, 39, later went back to the spot outside a McDonald's branch in central London where they first handed out the flyers, setting up a banner that read: "Celebrate 20 years of global resistance to McWorld."

"Obviously we are elated. It is a total victory in terms of the ruling," Morris told a crowd of supporters, photographers and journalists.

McDonald's U.K. office said the case related to a claim made against the British government, and it was therefore "inappropriate" for the company to comment on the case or its outcome.

"It is important to note, although the so-called 'McLibel' case came to court in 1994, the allegations related to practices in the '80s. The world has moved on since then, and so has McDonald's," it said.

The much-publicized trial lasted 313 court days, during which Morris and Steel were refused legal aid and represented themselves with help only from volunteer lawyers.

They told the European court their defense had been hampered by lack of money. The two Londoners had been unemployed or had low-wage jobs, and English courts at the time did not provide lawyers for defendants in such cases.

The seven-judge panel ruled the activists' rights to adequate defense had been violated. It also said the trial proceedings infringed on their rights to freedom of expression.

"The denial of legal aid to the applicants had deprived them of the opportunity to present their case effectively before the court and contributed to an unacceptable inequality of arms with McDonald's," the European court said.

The British trial judge ruled in 1997 that the two had libeled U.S.-based McDonald's by distributing leaflets titled "What's wrong with McDonald's? Everything they don't want you to know."

The judge had ordered them to pay damages totaling $135,000. An appeals court upheld much of the original judgment in 1999, but reduced the amount of damages awarded.