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2010 MarsdenLR 527
HIGH COURT ENGLAND AND WALES
AZAD ALI – Appellant
Versus
ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS LIMITED – Respondent
[Case No: HQ09D04510]
The court upheld that the content of blog posts could justify a claim of defamation, particularly when the statements imply advocacy for violence against troops, thereby allowing a summary judgment for the defendant.
Headnote:(A) Defamation - Libel - Summary Judgment - The principles discussed include the burden of proof on the claimant, the standards for evaluating contested meanings of published statements, and the role of the jury in assessing evidence. (Paras 8, 10, 33)
(B) Justification - The defendant claimed that the blog posts of the claimant justified characterizing him as advocating violence against British and American troops. The justification was deemed inherently linked to the content of the blogs. (Paras 18, 31, 35)
(C) Fair Comment - The application did not rely on a defense of fair comment but focused solely on justification based on the claimant's blog. (Paras 9, 10)
Facts of the case:
The claimant, a civil servant, was alleged to be a hardline Islamic extremist due to blog posts published on his site, in which he engaged in discussions regarding jihad and occupation. (Paras 1, 3, 17)
Findings of Court:
The court agreed that the claimant’s blog could be interpreted as implying justification for the killing of occupying troops, leading to the conclusion of the claim being effectively futile. (Paras 35, 36)
Issues: The core issues were whether the defendant's published words bore the pleaded defamatory meaning and if they could be justified based on the claimant's own writings. (Paras 4, 31)
Ratio Decidendi: The court concluded that the claimant's blog content was sufficient for a reasonable jury to find the defendant's allegations of extremism and advocacy of violence substantially true. The court stated, "It would be perverse to take a contrary view." (Paras 35, 36)
Result: Application for summary judgment granted in favor of the defendant.
| Table of Content |
|---|
| 1. defamation claim facts and context established. (Para 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6) |
| 2. arguments on justification and jury role in libel. (Para 7 , 8 , 10 , 18 , 34) |
| 3. court observations on context and jury interpretation. (Para 11 , 12 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 20 , 31) |
| 4. claim lacks merit and is bound to fail. (Para 35 , 36) |
| 5. summary judgment granted. (Para 37) |
[1] The Claimant is Mr Azad Ali, who is a civil servant employed in the Treasury. These libel proceedings relate to allegations published in The Mail on Sunday on 18 January 2009 and repeated the following day in The Daily Mail. Reliance is also placed on the corresponding publications on the Defendants website. The heading for the Sunday (and website) article was "Muslim civil servant suspended over kill British blog" and that for the following day was "Civil servant backed fanatics call to kill our troops in Iraq".
[2] The articles recorded the fact that the Claimant had been suspended from his employment following the posting of a number of remarks on his personal blog published on the Between the Lines website. This is hosted by the Islamic Forum of Europe. In the course of the article passages were cited from two particular postings published by the Claimant under the headings; Defeating extremism by promoting balance; and; We are the Resistance II. These appeared, respectively, on 18 November 2008 and 15 January 2009.
[3] The claim form and particulars of claim were served on 8 October of last year. The same defamatory meaning is pleaded in respect of each of the relevant publications (appearing at paras 6.1 and 9.1 of the particulars of claim):-
"The Claimant is a hardline Islamic extremist who supports the killing of British and American soldiers in Iraq by fellow Muslims as justified."
He thus appears to accept that anyone who supported such killing should be characterised as "hardline" and "extremist". To that extent, at least, the parties would seem to be agreed.
[4] The Defendant does not accept that this widely expressed meaning is necessarily conveyed by the words complained of but it is recognised, for the purposes of the present application, that a jury might uphold it and Mr Glen, on the Defendants behalf, has developed its arguments on that hypothesis.
[5] The Defendant drew attention in the articles to some other statements made by the Claimant. In particular, he had criticised the UK governments policy on the conflict between Palestine and Israel. It appears that the Claimant did not approve of a statement by the Foreign Secretary in which Hamas had been classified as a "terrorist organisation", since he had refused to condemn what the Claimant regards as "the Zionist terrorist state of Israel". There was also criticism of representatives of various British Muslim organisations which have been offering advice to the government.
[6] The articles cited observations by a Member of Parliament, Mr Patrick Mercer, who suggested that the Claimants criticism of government policy was inconsistent with the political neutrality generally expected of a civil servant. Nevertheless, it had been confirmed by the Claimant well before proceedings were served that he was not complaining of that particular criticism.
[7] On the present application, Mr Glen boldly seeks summary judgment pursuant to CPR Part 24 and/or an order for the claim to be struck out under CPR Part 3.4(2). His submission is that it is bound to fail. In short, he argues that the Claimants observations on his blog advocated a form of jihad which can only be understood as justifying the killing of British and American troops in Iraq.
[8] I have characterised the application as "bold" because Mr Glen has to demonstrate that a jury would be perverse to conclude other than that the Defendants allegations, even in the broad meaning contended for by the Claimant, are substantially true - and at a stage when no; Lucas-Box; meaning has been pleaded or any particulars of justification. What Mr Glen a
