Saudi
billionaire Mohammed Jameel took the Wall Street Journal to court
over an article which said that the Saudi Arabian government was
monitoring the bank accounts of the wealthy in a search for
supporters of terrorism. The name of one of Jameel's companies was
said to appear on a list of monitored accounts, a claim that turned
out not to be true.
The Court of Appeal had found in Jameel's favour, but that
ruling was overturned unanimously by five law lords. The ruling
sets a precedent which could make defending defamation actions
easier in the future, said experts.
"The decision provides the media in Britain with an increased
freedom to publish newsworthy stories," said Geoffrey Robertson QC
who represented The Wall St Journal in court. "It frees serious
investigative journalism from the chilling effect of libel actions,
so long as the treatment is not sensational and the editorial
behaviour is responsible. The ruling also frees investigative
journalists, authors and broadcasters to publish and defend stories
without danger to their sources."
The newspaper mounted a public interest defence based on a
ruling from 1998 involving former Irish prime minister Albert
Reynolds. That ruling said that when a matter of public interest
was being investigated, allegations that could not be proved true
afterwards should not attract libel damages.
In the Reynolds case the judge outlined 10 tests to determine
whether or not a story deserved protection from libel. The law
lords said that these tests had been too stringently applied in the
past and said that they wanted to restore "the spirit" of the
Reynolds judgment. They said that not all tests need to be passed
in order for a story to qualify.
The defence only exists, though, for stories and organisations
that represent journalism that is unsensational, neutral and
measured, said the lords.
"In the present case, the subject matter of the article
complained of was of undoubted public interest," said one of the
judges, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, in the ruling. "If the thrust of
the article is true, and the public interest condition is
satisfied, the inclusion of an inaccurate fact may not have the
same appearance of irresponsibility as it might if the whole thrust
of the article is untrue."
They rejected the Appeal Court judge's ruling against the
newspaper partially on the basis that the publication of
information breached an agreement between the governments of the US
and Saudi Arabia to keep bank account monitoring secret.
"It is no part of the duty of the press to cooperate with any
government, let alone foreign governments, in order to keep from
the public information of public interest, the disclosure of which
cannot be said to be damaging to national interests," said Lord
Scott, one of the law lords.
Mohammed Jameel said: "What the Wall Street Journal Europe wrote
in February 2002 was that the bank accounts of the Abdul Latif
Jameel Group were being monitored at the request of the US
authorities. That was not true. Mr Justice Eady and the court of
appeal ruled that I was libelled. The House of Lords ruled that I
was not, because it was reasonable for the Wall Street Journal
Europe to print something that was false. So be it. I was only ever
interested in proving that the allegations were untrue."
Another important issue that has arisen in this case and which
was raised in the Court of Appeal, but not considered by the House
of Lords, was the size of the article's online readership. Only
five people in England had been shown to have clicked a link to the
offending article, including Mr Jameel's solicitor and two of his
business associates. The Court of Appeal considered it an abuse of
process for Mr Jameel to pursue his claim in circumstances where
only "very modest damages" would have been available to him
following lengthy and expensive court proceedings. The Court of
Appeal's decision on this issue has not been affected by this
month's ruling by the Lords.
