GB - Dow Jones & Co Inc v Jameel

Lord Justice Phillips MR :

This is the judgment of the Court

Introduction

This is an appeal against four interlocutory rulings against the defendant (‘Dow Jones’) made by Eady J in two separate judgments on 6 July 2004. It was heard conjointly with an appeal against a preliminary ruling given by Eady J on 5 December 2003 in Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel and Abdul Latif Jameel Company Limited v The Wall Street Journal Europe SPRL (‘the Mohammed Jameel Action’). That action resulted in awards of damages in favour of each of the claimants. We heard other grounds of appeal against that result at an earlier sitting. In a judgment which we are handing down at the same time as this we have dismissed all the grounds of appeal in that action.

The claimant in this action is the brother of the first claimant in the Mohammed Jameel Action . Dow Jones is, we presume, affiliated with the defendant in the Mohammed Jameel Action. Dow Jones publishes The Wall Street Journal and The Wall Street Journal On-line. The latter is a publication made on a world wide web site, access to which is available to subscribers. In each action the individual claimants complain of publications implying that they have been, or are suspected of having been, involved in funding al Qaeda. In each action the defendants have not sought to justify the defamations alleged. Rather their case has been that they have been acting as responsible journalists in reporting statements made by the US authorities.

One of the rulings that we deal with in this appeal struck out from the defence a plea which attacked what has been described as ‘the presumption of damage’ on the ground that it is not compatible with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. More precisely, this plea was as follows:

“The Defendant …will contend that Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights precludes [the Claimant] from relying on any legal presumption of damage to establish standing, injury or harm.”

This attack was, of course, made in respect of a claim by an individual claimant. In the Mohammed Jameel Action what appeared to be a similar point was taken in respect of the claim by the corporate claimant. Because of this apparent similarity we dealt with the point in each appeal at the same hearing. In the event the arguments advanced in each appeal proved very different. The appeal in relation to the presumption of damage is brought with permission granted by Sedley LJ.

The second issue raised by

Lord Justice Phillips MR :

This is the judgment of the Court

Introduction

The second issue raised by

Dow Jones & Co Inc v Jameel

Areas of Law