Libel law review over McDonald's ruling

There is good news on the front page of the UK's Wednesday, February 16, Guardian, in an article headed: "Libel law review over McDonald's ruling." The New York Times is also carrying the story (below).

The Guardian story opens:
"The government is to review the libel laws after two penniless environmental campaigners who were sued by McDonald's, the global burger chain, yesterday won a ruling at the European court of human rights that their rights to a fair trial and freedom of expression were violated when they were denied legal aid.

"The libel battle pitted Helen Steel, a part-time barmaid earning £65 a week, and David Morris, a single parent on income support, against an expert legal team headed by a £2,000-a-day libel QC in a 313-day trial, the longest in English legal history.

We learn that:
"The Strasbourg court awarded damages of £13,750 to Ms Steel and £10,300 to Mr Morris.
Apart from paying the damages, the government will have to open the legal aid purse strings to impecunious defendants sued by multinational corporations or wealthy individuals in complex cases."

We get some background on the case:
"McDonald's sued Ms Steel and Mr Morris, both from north London, in 1990 over leaflets headed 'What's Wrong With McDonald's?,' which they distributed outside the burger chain's restaurants.

"These accused the chain of exploiting children, cruelty to animals, destroying the rainforest, paying low wages and peddling unhealthy food....

"Despite the obstacles, the two campaigners won a ruling from the high court that some of the claims in the leaflet were true, in what was described as 'the biggest corporate PR disaster in history'. Mr Justice Bell ruled that the leaflet was correct when it accused the company of paying low wages to its workers, being responsible for cruelty to some of the animals used in its food products, and exploiting children in advertising campaigns.

Another article, on page 5, headed, "20-year fight ends with libel law in the dock" details what the defendants were up against and tells us, "the heart of their case was that McDonald's, a company with a turnover of $40bn (£21bn) a year, was unfairly using the British libel laws to sue two penniless people for libel over public interest issues which affect people's every day lives. It was a clear case, they said, of the corporate censorship of opposition and debate backed by the British establishment.

The New York Times article, headed "Britain Faulted Over McDonald's Libel Case" (page C5) leads with the meat of the campaign against McDonald's. It opens:

"Two anti-McDonald's activists convicted of libel in Britain for criticizing the company's animal rights practices, its environmental policies and the nutritional value of its food did not get a fair trial and should be compensated by the British government, a European court said Tuesday...

"The trial still holds the record as Britain's longest, and helped fuel anti-McDonald's sentiment throughout Europe.

"In its 1997 decision, the High Court in Britain ruled that some, but not all, of the information in the pamphlet was correct. Defendants in British libel cases must prove that everything they said is true, rather than the plaintiffs proving that what has been said is false. (The court found that McDonald's was not responsible for starvation in the third world, rain forest deforestation or food poisoning, but that it was culpable for cruel treatment of chickens and sows, and for paying low wages.)"

On the update, it tells us:
"On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights said the ruling was unfair, in part because Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris were not granted legal aid....
"The European court also weighed in on freedom of expression, saying that there was a 'strong public interest' in enabling groups outside the mainstream to 'contribute to the public debate by disseminating information and ideas on matters of general public interest such as health and environment.'

You can read the Guardian articles on line at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1415490,00.html and http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1415304,00.html and the New York Times article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/business/worldbusiness/16libel.html

They present great opportunities for supportive letters following Steel and Morris's example, speaking up for those who cannot, who are at the mercy of McDonald's and the many other corporations and industries that profit from animal abuse.

The New York Times takes letters at: letters [at] nytimes.com

The Guardian takes letters at: letters [at] guardian.co.uk and instructs: "We do not publish letters where only an email address is supplied; please include a full postal address and a reference to the relevant article. If you do not want your email address published, please say so. We may edit letters."

Remember -- shorter letters are more likely to be published.

Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)