A HIGH Court judge has dismissed claims that a number of national newspapers breached the terms of injunctions obtained by a 22-year-old student arising out of postings accompanying an internet video clip which he says defamed him.
The action was brought by the student who who had previously obtained temporary injunctions against a number of internet parties, including Facebook and Google, prohibiting the rebroadcasting or republishing of the material, which he says defames him by alleging he was guilty of taxi fare evasion.
In his ruling yesterday, the judge noted the taxi driver himself had come to court and said that the student was not the person who avoided paying the fare.
The student, who the court found was innocent of the allegations as he was in Japan studying at the time of the incident, also argued that six newspapers had breached the terms of those injunctions by identifying him in subsequent court reports of his action.
He also sought orders preventing the newspapers from identifying him in any further reporting of his case. The newspapers had opposed his application, denied there was any breach and argued the original injunctions did not apply to them.
Yesterday at the High Court Mr Justice Michael Peart dismissed the student's applications against The Irish Times, Irish Independent, Evening Herald, Irish Examinerand Irish Daily Star. The Sunday Timeshad previously been released from the proceedings.
The judge said the terms of the injunction he had previously granted were not directed at the newspapers, and their reporting of the case had not breached orders he made on January 11th.
He was completely satisfied that newspapers were and are entitled to name the young man in their reporting of the proceedings. There was no basis on which it could be said the applicant was entitled to the reliefs sought, the judge found.
The judge also held that at no time did the student make an application that his name should not be disclosed in any reporting of his proceedings.
If the student felt he had been defamed in any reports, the judge added, he could seek redress in the ordinary way. The issue of costs was adjourned to next month. However, it was indicated to the court that all sides intended to apply for their costs in the action.
Last week the student sought orders prohibiting six national newspapers from identifying him in relation to the court proceedings and from publishing anything defamatory of him.
He claimed the injunctions obtained prohibited third parties with knowledge of it from publishing material, and that this covers the newspapers. He claimed his case could be reported but that he could not be identified.
His lawyers argued he was entitled under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights to have his right to privacy and his good name protected and vindicated by the court. In order to do so the court must provide him with an effective remedy which in this case was a right to anonymity.
No public interest was served by the newspapers naming the young man who is a private citizen and was entitled to a right to privacy given that he was in no way responsible for the events that led to his public identification, it was claimed.
The newspapers argued they were not covered by the original injunctions obtained by the student. The intended targets of the injunctions, they claimed, were ordinary internet users and service providers who might repeat or post fresh material that was defamatory of the 22-year-old.
The newspapers’ only role, it was argued, was to report in a fair and proper manner proceedings which were held in public and no reporting restrictions were either sought or granted.
The papers also submitted they were not obliged not to name the applicant given that he named himself in the proceedings that are required under the Constitution to be held in public.
It was further submitted that any person, no matter how innocent they are in relation to matters complained of, must be taken to know that once they go to court to protect their good name they can be identified publicly, and becoming more widely known than had they chosen to do nothing about the situation.
In his ruling Mr Justice Peart said the student’s action was not a case “where the facts were so exceptional that it would allow the court not to follow the law as it has been pronounced in the highest court in the country”.
The judge said he was in agreement with judgments of the Supreme Court that have found that “justice to be administered in public requires the attendant publicity, including the identification of parties seeking justice” and that “it is often said that if justice is to be done, it must also be seen to be done and if that involves innocent parties being brought before the courts in either civil or criminal proceedings and wrongly accused that is unfortunate, but is essential for the protection of the entire judicial system”.
“Who would have thought when in the dark hours of November 13th last a young man got out of a taxi in Monkstown without paying the fare that this would result in another young man . . . who was thousands of miles away in Japan on that date” would see “a phalanx of at least a dozen lawyers” spending hours debating “weighty issues”, asked the judge.
Those rights, he added, included “the right to privacy, the right to freedom of the press to fairly and accurately report court proceedings and the right to an effective remedy”.
“The combined costs” of the hearing, the judge added, might be sufficient to purchase a decent house in any part of the country.
In regards to the applicant Mr Justice Peart said it was “a profound regret to me” that “this entirely innocent man found himself in a predicament where his good name had been sullied in the manner which it was”.
He had been subjected to the “most appalling stream of vile” abuse after an anonymous author on the internet had wrongly assumed he was the person who did not pay his taxi fare. Some of the language used “would offend even the liberal and broad-minded”, the judge added.