"An Outbreak of Reason..." In Defamation Law? Unlikely.

Grendel's Mother 2007

At a Directions Hearing intended to assign yet another new start date for our case to be heard at trial Supreme Court of Victoria Associate Justice Melissa Daly remarked as a question to the appearing barristers "…it is possibly safe to assume there has been no outbreak of reason?"

Where Defamation Law fails is in its practice. The facts of a case, the truth, simply get in the way when all that defendants should do is back down in order to be seen as reasonable by the court. It is a flawed and insincere system that is the Victorian Supreme Court. 

I recognise that Justice Daly's comment may come from a sense of helpless frustration as it is likely connected to valid concerns of a congested and overworked court system. However, is this the fault of all parties associated with the attendant grid-locked cases? What I'd ask Justice Daly, if I could is, where is this complained of lack of reason actually present? The subject of reason is one raised over and over by my co-Defendant and I with regards it's relative absence in light of efforts, particularly by the Plaintiff and his lawyers in our case, but also by the justice system itself, to ensure the journey of the case has as little relationship with reason as possible. 

In Defamation Law the legal sanctions and burdens are all on the defendant. The constant rescheduling of our case at such a late hour is out of our hands, and, we've jumped through every fiery hoop one can imagine to get there. What is it that we could do to make matters more reasonable? Give up and lose our life's possessions entirely as well as completely shred our ethics and values?

Justice Daly's off the cuff remark, noted above, in part a defensively put apologia of sorts to the appearing barristers, presumes by its tone that problems or flaws only exist outside those caused by her own industry, and because it presents a perversion of reality I must point out the following:

1. I am a reasonable person the remark implies this isn't the case.
2. My co-defendant is a reasonable person the remark implies this isn't the case.
3. Each in our own way critique the assailing of reason by the forces of unreason in our art and writings. The remark implies this is irrelevant.
4. Justice Daly's off the cuff remark implies the court assumes there is a lack of reason on behalf of all parties to a case.
5. The remark and its attendant assumptions issued within an open court room embarrassed with its tone. And, those in attendance found the justice's remark to be amusing at my and my co-defendant's expense.
6. Reason itself has already been rejected on a number of occasions by officers of the court system itself…Daly has no weight behind her assertion that there is little reason on behalf of the parties when it is the court that has assisted to create the unreasonable circumstances allowing for the case to continue at the behest of an unreasonable litigant.
7. Defamation Law provides an unreasonable person, who has the financial means, the capacity to utilise the law as a weapon, as a tool of censorship to suppress knowledge of the truth.  As I've noted in previous postings Defamation Law is a known means by which to threaten critics, prevent criticism and quash evidence of truth and therefore apply limits to truth and free speech which the law claims it does not intend to restrict or limit. For further reading see: "Defamation Terrorism is Alive and Well in Australia" & "How Defamation Law Achieves Censorship in modern Australia" etc. 
8. Defamation Law contains no sign of reasonable checks and balances to prevent its misuse. Misuses are only identified at trial and are rarely punished. 
9. Those that finally get to trial to defend truth are labelled "unreasonable" by a court system that cannot cope with the self-created problems it complains it has become overburdened by. Our case being delayed is due to other newer cases usurping it in importance (as ours was delayed). This is an outcome we cannot affect. 
10. The over-burdened court, through its own unreasonable processes, has made a case string out to almost 3 years, then blamed those who are inextricably caught in the inevitable congestion for this outcome. Thus the court turns on those who have been victims once making them victims all over again by in addition blaming them for possessing a lack of reason.

The question of reason is one we put to the Plaintiff Robert Cripps. When Robert Cripps consistently spewed forth public diatribes containing accusations of racism against us and our exhibition (that we'd unfortunately held in his failed Guildford Lane Gallery) we attempted to reason with him. We challenged his ideas and pointed to the flaws in those ideas and complained to him of his behaviour towards us. The attempts we made to defend our reputation and art however simply further incensed an unreasonable person. 

Why the attempts we made to "reason" with Cripps so spectacularly failed is a good question that we'd like to have answered too. He either ranted more or denied ever having made the accusations we complained of. He further lied about steps he took to distort viewers' understanding of the content of our exhibition and his successful aim to deny us access to the gallery for the duration of the show. His behaviour was and is not that of a reasoned or reasonable person. 

I give you "Exhibit A" being the defamation case before the Supreme Court of Victoria brought by the Plaintiff Robert Cripps. It is not that I or my co-Defendant lack reason in being forced to defend ourselves against a person using an unreasonable system that feeds and nurtures his unreasonable sense of hurt. Robert Cripps, a person who has caused me and my co-Defendant harm, and the Supreme Court of Victoria have forced me to engage with them both, not the other way around.

Daly (et al) complain of what I see as a self inflicted - overburdened - system. It appears they have a different view since it is believed there must be a taint upon our character or the character of other/all parties to a case by association, as they will have us all lumped together as persons who lack reasonableness. 

It is Robert Cripps who detected the weaknesses in Defamation Law and who is now attempting to exploit it to his advantage. He like others before him see an opportunity, using defamation law to make up for complained of poor business practices and unprofessional behaviour. Defamation Law and the courts contribute to and validate such unreasonableness by not striking out cases brought to it that are clearly vexatious litigation. 

If Defamation Law is to maintain a valid place it must reform and tighten up its proclaimed "objects of the act". Where are the early phase checks and balances to avoid its misuses? It should never be used to prop or conceal a poor reputation in order that it may continue to cause harm. It should never be possible to misuse Defamation Law in order to make financial gain on the basis of concealing the truth of a pre-existing and extant poor reputation. 

The result is that in practice Defamation Law does exactly what is claimed it is framed to avoid, limit and restrict the imparting and receipt of information, as it dismisses truth as being harmful to a reputation and therefore defamatory. 

The only cause of any harm ever to Robert Cripps, is Robert Cripps. Perhaps he really should be suing himself?

If there exists any lack of reason it is in a poorly framed Defamation Law that does not care where, how or when it should not be used, in a judicial system that merely looks the other way as it is over-whelmed(?), and in Plaintiffs who will exploit these built in flaws.

Other Reading (image heavy): http://www.redlegvartists.com/fraud.html

Defamation Terrorism is Alive and Well in Australia

How the Defamation Terrorists win in Australian is through our legal system's blind eye to defending truth and its farcical fascination with preserving the beauty of its own navel forever to be kept in stasis so that one day, it may be reconnected to the umbilicus of the Great and Mighty British Mother Land. Gives you chills and goose-bumps at the thought doesn't it? Or, like me, does all the aping of Her transposed pomp and nonsense ceremony, bowing and scraping to bewigged puffed up buffoonery dismay you too? How can we take this seriously? Why is it that the Australian legal system (industry) cannot see that what it desires and apes for itself is not what the people of Australia want? Defamation laws or wigs, their acceptance as the way things are meant to be are formed from the same illogic. If it is from the Mother Land it is to be emulated as it is good.

Justice Generic Bewigged - incognito © Lee-Anne Raymond 2013

Well, Your (bewigged) Worship, you and your ilk, who would determine my fate, are asses and peculiar ones to boot. How are we to take you seriously? No, seriously why should we not laugh and point at your clown like bewigged appearance - which according to NSW Court of Appeal Court Spokeswoman Sonya Zadel is because a wig affords judges in particular a sort of protective shield:

“In criminal matters a wig gives a judge some anonymity … it’s an issue of safety and security,” lawyersweekly-2007-judges-ditch-wigs  

Nonsense Sonya.
The wearing of wigs though not enforced in law grew in tradition from the 17th century on as a type of "fashion statement" alternative to bad hair and into hierarchical symbolism (though in my view the original aims were based upon establishing hierarchy and elevated difference). The wigs and gowns suggest a uniform of sorts a bit like a religious order, shocked as some in the legal industry may be to have such an association made. The wigs and robes represent within the industry and to the public the status of the wearer. The garments separate and elevate the lawyers from the public to create a hierarchical authority over the client and identify their level or status within and to the order.  Other elements of significance come into play such as the age the wig looks to be being relevant to how important you are, its style and length etc along with the types of robes worn are all very important markers of elevation and status. History-of-wigs

But I digress. Of course with the title of my post I am adapting the label of "Libel Terrorism" which applies to offended plaintiffs (wealthy ones) dragging defendants into UK courts in order to seek damages outside of unfavourable jurisdictions like for instance the USA which protects the right to free speech. Libel terrorism developed out of the legal phenomena known as libel tourism (coined by Geoffrey Robinson). Even the UN finally noticed enough in 2008 to point out the flaws in British Libel legislation allowed for serious human rights implications as they 

"served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as libel tourism." 

I am labelling ALL Defamation Law as being a way to threaten, attack and wipe out criticism in order to censor and/or extract monetary gain. The mere threat of the damaging effects of defamation law are enough in many cases to silence the right to impart and receive information which is a human rights violation. Why would we want to allow free speech which might lead to robust criticism and to more free and open society/s? Yeah crazy talk, isn't it?

Following political and public agitation in 2010 the US "Committee on the Judiciary" and President Obama concluded the use of the UK's "Militant Libel Laws" threatened the freedom of speech and was effectively a "chilling" of the fifth amendment rights of US writers and journalists. So they have now passed protective laws called The Libel Terrorism Protection Act to block supply to the libel terrorists/tourists. Hell, there was even an episode of "The Good Wife" (which I have blogged on earlier) that seemed to pick up on some elements from a known case - Funding Evil where author Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld was sued for libel in the UK (by a non-resident plaintiff) as 23 copies of the publication in question had been purchased through UK online bookstores. 

Anyway with such decisive action by the US courts...take that you British scoundrels...loud applause and hoorays from all...came the backlash. Backlash? you ask, who'd protect such ludicrous laws? The libel terrorism industry protectors and benefactors (the lawyers and judges specifically) in the UK of course. Sure the odd individual beneficiary might have been paid out bazillions of nefariously acquired libel terrorism bucks too but these sensitive malcontents are the least of the issue. Where the real interest lay in keeping the backdoor open is in the legal industry that had built up around the demand. Where the legal industry, like any industry, sees a market it fills it, justifies it and cultivates it. And, now their beautifully fattened up law and their ability to continually suckle at its ever ballooning teat had been taken away.

Does this mean that a potentially never ending source of financial resources and source of social aggrandisement would be affected? Well, shit yeah! But, not without tantrums being thrown from within The House of Lords (the most bewigged and robed attired of them all) it wouldn't. Loud cries of "You shall not pass!" were heard...okay apologies to J.R. R. Tolkien and Gandalf, but you get the gist. Quite right too, how on earth will they ever afford their rented castles and wig makers now?

Rachel Ehrenfeld at the time noted...

"A recent speech by a former senior judge of the appellate committee of the House of Lords, Lord Leonard Hoffmann, expressed strong opposition to the US legislation. He also attacked the UN human rights committee's finding in July 2008 that British libel laws, especially those that facilitate libel tourism, are chilling free speech worldwide. Libel tourism is a phenomenon in which foreign claimants exploit plaintiff-friendly defamation laws to sue authors and publishers in countries in which they have not worked or published." 

All defamation laws and jurisdictions are flawed, expensive and shamefully tawdry in intent, some more so than others. Even the US version has problems, though it at least limits defamation significantly by clearly declaring the truth cannot defame. And it does so without the security of protective wigs.

Defamation/Libel Laws in their current forms do nothing to sufficiently defend the so called defamed and are anti human rights. No one has the human right to
- not ever be offended
- subvert the truth to achieve censorship
- conceal a lie in order to achieve censorship
- elevate reputation above the right to receive and impart information
- utilise laws, poorly framed or not, for a collateral purpose

Truth may offend but it cannot harm a reputation by being known. If true then that is the reputation revealed as it exists. If you don't want others to know you expose your dangly bits to unfortunate school children, defraud, lie, burn, bomb, rape or pillage, then don't be that sort of person/company. Be better, be good and deal with the truth when it comes out by facing it and its consequences honestly. Expose a lie when it is a lie, but don't develop out of such an aim an industry which in reality has the goal to eliminate truth and all knowledge of it. There's a good world citizen.

What is needed?
Reform ** (view the petition and please sign to support Australian defamation law reform)

One follower of our case "couldn't" sign our petition as it doesn't "go far enough", the law should be completely abolished in his view. I can't disagree but I can't see how we might get such an outcome in reality. That said there could be a framework which upholds the right inform on truth and informed opinion.  Wait, isn't that the US Constitution's 5th Amendment? I know but stay with me. Where in addition such a framework channelled complaints through an Administrative Tribunal. One providing democratic access to ones own representation to prove truth or demonstrate a lie. Complete with severely capped potential payouts thus blunting the current windfall component of defamation law that encourages litigation for collateral purpose and authorises censorship which in turn encourages an industry to be built up around it in order to service the litigious and censorial.