McLIBEL APPEAL - WEEK 3
DAY 9 - 27th January 1999
On Tuesday 26th January, the defendants had faxed to the Lord Justices a
detailed application for a temporary adjournment of the proceedings for
a few days. They were informed they would have to make the application
in person the next day.
In court they explained that they needed further time set aside for preparation for the appeal as they had a backlog of written work to complete, and this week they were also expected to somehow complete a mammoth task of preparing for the presentation of their case on why they should have won outright on each of the issues in the trial which the judge had failed to find in their favour. It was not possible for them to get this preparation done at the weekends as Helen works Friday and Saturday nights, and Dave is a full-time single parent.
They were suffering from stress and lack of sleep, they explained. They also stated that they had not had time to arrange any meeting with legal advisors for ages. 'We are trying our best to comply with the court's wishes and directions but believe that it is not in our interest or in the public interest that one side is inadequately prepared, and under continuous pressure as litigants in person, especially in the light of the inequality of arms and arguing power when compared to the fully resourced Respondents.'
The Lord Justices Pill, May and Keane refused the application, and the hearing continued straight away despite the defendants being unprepared.
The defendants were questioned in detail about the character of the London Greenpeace 1986 Factsheet 'What's Wrong With McDonald's? Everything They Don't Want You To Know', and the meaning of each section. They explained that its purpose was to alert the public to what lies behind the expensively manufactured image of the McDonald's Corporation and the whole food industry. It was clear that the leaflet was critical of multinationals in general and the harm to society and the planet caused by a system based on profit rather than people's needs. The defendants argued that such literature was performing a valuable public service and should be protected from libel suits.
Richard Rampton QC appeared to have shot himself in the foot after he argued that it was too late for the defendants to complain about the trial Judge's controversial interpretation of the 'nutrition' section of the factsheet - the links between McDonald's food, diet and long term ill-health. He said that they had already made an appeal on this during the trial and had failed to get the Judge's decision overturned, so it must stand. A great legal controversy arose when the defendants pointed out that not all of the appeal points had been looked into during the previous appeal and that in any event, the trial Judge himself had later amended his meaning, and therefore they had the right to appeal against his final determination. By law a Judge is not entitled to change a decision made in a higher court, so his final determination of the nutrition meaning may be void!
DAY 10 - 28th January 1999
The section of the case relating to the destruction of tropical forests
by the beef industry took up the whole day, with the defendants
explaining that Mr Justice Bell had, in the McLibel trial, interpreted
the factsheet in an extremely narrow, semantic way, ignoring the context
of criticism of collective industry-wide responsibility , and ignoring
the fact that it was clear that the factsheet was refering to all
tropical forest around the equator, not solely a technical and limited
category of 'rainforests'. The judge had ruled that the defendants would
have to prove that McDonald's alone had themselves destroyed vast areas
of, specifically, 'luxuriant, broad-leaved, evergreen, very wet, canopy
forest'. This ruling, they explained, ignored the effect of the beef
industry in general and McDonald's role in it, and also ignored the
damage to the wider tropical forests, which in any case must be of
concern to readers of the factsheet.
Nevertheless, the defendants case was that:
- it was accepted that McDonald's is the worlds largest user and
promoter of beef products, and that the rise in global consumption and
promotion of beef products is a major cause of tropical
forest/rainforest destruction, and the eviction of small farmers and
indigenous peoples living in those regions.
- it was also accepted that McDonald's use and have used beef products
from tropical forest/rainforest countries and from former tropical
forest/rainforest areas (in Brazil, Costa Rica and Guatemala).
Furthermore, McDonald's have used for their products animals fed with
soya feed grown in Brazil thereby, the defendants argued, contributing
to processes leading to forest destruction and displacement of peoples.
- McDonald's are an integral part of the international cash crop economy, which is a major cause of third world poverty and hunger.
More specifically, and as an example of the strength of their case, the defendants referred to some of the evidence about Brazil. It was admitted during the trial that Brazilian beef had been exported for McDonald's stores in the UK, Switzerland, Argentina and Uruguay. And in Brazil itself, McDonald's had been forced to reveal that for the last 20 years their local stores had been using beef raised in regions where defence experts testified that indigenous people and small farmers had been forcibly evicted. In particular, defence expert Professor Hecht, who has conducted extensive field research in the relevant regions supplying McDonald's beef, had stated that 'I am certain that a substantial proportion of cattle supplied to Cuiaba meat plants (1979-82) and to Goias Carne for the last 20 years (up till now) would have been cattle from rainforest areas.'
However, Mr Justice Bell had disregarded the views of the defence experts (despite McDonald's not calling any experts of their own), and ruled that these areas mostly weren't ex-rainforest by his definition, and that in any case McDonald's couldn't be responsible for their clearance. The defendants argued that this was a clear example of the way the trial judge discriminated in favour of McDonald's throughout the trial, despite the obvious fact that almost all McDonald's witnesses were in the financial gambit or control of the company, in contrast to the genuinely independent defence witnesses.
The defendants briefly referred to their extensive written submissions summarising the many cases of such discrimination and bias by Mr Justice Bell contained throughout his judgment on each issue. [This matter will be dealt with at greater length later on in the Appeal.]
The Lord Justices, decided that the next day in court would be the following Wednesday (3rd February) to allow some extra time for the parties' preparations.