United States-based Guyanese political commentator Rickford Burke last month lost libel suits he had filed back in 2013 against MTV, Guyana Times, and Little Rock TV.
In a judgment, dated June 15th, acting Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire ruled that Burke led no evidence to support the actions brought and resultantly could not substantiate his reputation being damaged in any way.
In dismissing the claims, the chief judge ordered Burke to pay a total of $400,000 in court costs among the named respondents.
Burke’s claim had been that from the period January 30th to January 31st, 2013, Multi Technology Vision Inc. (MTV), Guyana Times and Little Rock had all published libelous statements against him, with the Times making certain publications in its newspaper as well.
He had sought injunctions restraining the publication of what he described as the offending article, bearing the headline “Rickford Burke charged with identity theft” and the broadcast of a news item “APNU official Rickford Burke charged with identity theft in New York.”
According to Burke, who heads the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) in New York, he was never charged with identity theft and his character and reputation were damaged, especially in diplomatic and political circles in the diaspora, as a result of the publications.
Regarding his claim against MTV, the court noted that Burke (the plaintiff) never himself said anything in evidence, but that it was rather his brother, Brandford Burke, who was living in Guyana, who spoke of hearing a news item about his brother being arrested and charged with identify theft.
According to the judgment, Brandford had heard this on a programme hosted by Kwame McCoy and he had also read about the alleged arrest of his brother in the Guyana Times.
The judgment outlined that Brandford had only read the impugned article in the Guyana Times a week after broadcast which made him angry, followed by a number of persons calling him to enquire about the veracity of the broadcast.
The plaintiff himself said he never saw retractions of the Guyana Times TV or newspaper publications and had been told of another story in the Times.
In her ruling, Justice George-Wiltshire said that in the absence of supporting evidence of the MTV broadcast, she found to be more credible the evidence of Rajesh Lakhan that that TV station never aired the programme.
On this point she noted, too, the testimony of Brandford that while he had seen the television programme, he had no recording or transcript of it and he acknowledged that while he sought to maintain that the programme had been aired on MTV, he had no other evidence besides his own.
In the circumstances, the chief justice said she did not find that the plaintiff had proven his case against MTV and his claim against that television station was dismissed.
‘Qualified privilege’
As regards the Guyana Times, however, the chief justice said she concluded not only based on the plaintiffs’ evidence, but also evidence presented on behalf of that entity, that the words alleged “Rickford Burke charged for identity theft” were indeed published by the Guyana Times on January 31st, 2013.
She, however, said the publisher had the defence of qualified privilege available to it.
The judge said the defence of the Times was that it believed the information which referred to a “Wilton R. Burke being charged” to be true and that sometime around January 15th, 2013 the New York Police Department laid charges in the Kings Criminal Court against a person named “Wilton Burke.”
The Times’ case had been that it was informed by its sources that the information referred to the plaintiff, a well-known political commentator.
The ruling highlighted that Michael Younge, Senior Reporter/ Assistant Editor at the time, had testified to having received an email with that information from McCoy, then Press and Publicity Unit officer of the Office of the President.
Younge would then go on to write the story, which was published about the plaintiff on January 31st.
The judgment pointed out that Younge said he had discussed the article with then editor Nigel Williams, who indicated that he would verify the information.
According to the judgment, Younge did not know what Williams did in this regard.
Younge, the court noted, had attempted to contact him after the publication of the article and was aware of the subsequent publication of an article in the Times dated February 10th, 2013 which represented a retraction of the January 31st article.
The ruling highlighted Younge saying that they subsequently tried to verify the case number after the January publication and that at the time of publication he did not know whether the plaintiff was named “Wilton.”
The witness, the court pointed out, said he relied on the information from the Office of the President that the ‘R’ in the article referred to Rickford Burke, the plaintiff, but Younge admitted that he had no document that referred to the plaintiff as “Rickford Burke” in relation to his verification of the document he received from the Office of the President.
He testified that he based his verification solely on what he was told by McCoy and requested of McCoy whether he had additional information as proof, but such information was never provided.
The judge said that attorney Nigel Hughes, who represented the plaintiff, based his submissions and relied merely on the evidence led as establishing the claims made by the plaintiff.
The court, however, said that points presented by attorney Ronald Burch-Smith who represented the Times, had merit.
Justice George-Wiltshire said that referencing case law authorities, this lawyer pointed out among other things that each publication must be pleaded and that, in this context, publication of information in a paper edition of a newspaper is separate from any online publication of the said information.
The lawyer then went on further to highlight that the plaintiff’s brother was not specific as to what Guyana Times newspaper he read that referred to Rickford.
Burch-Smith further pointed out that while Brandford spoke of seeing the offending TV programme on January 30th and reading the newspaper article the following week, the evidence is that the newspaper article was published on January 31st and therefore it is unclear what article Brandford read, especially since he gave no evidence of its contents, nor ever mentioned the headlines as pleaded in his brother’s claim.
The court noted that Rickford Burke did not produce the paper edition of the publication complained of, nor did he or his witnesses ever testify to having read the article of January 31st.
It was stated that “none of them gave specifics of what they read.”
Justice George-Wiltshire said the evidence lends to the view that the publication was done in Guyana, but that there was no evidence of damage to the plaintiffs character in Guyana and the plaintiff led no evidence about his reputation being affected in Guyana.
Against this background, the Chief Justice said the plaintiff failed to prove his case since he presented no evidence to prove that the publication made by the Guyana Times resulted in his reputation in Guyana being affected.
Further, the judge said that having reviewed the evidence and the law on defamation, she concluded as submitted by Burch-Smith, that the defence of qualified privilege was available to the Times.
She said that in pleading this defence a defendant in a defamation suit is simply contending that they ought not to be found liable as they would have had a legal, social or moral duty to publish what they did; and correspondingly, readers of the publication would have had a legitimate interest in receiving the published material.
She said the court had to determine whether the “duty-interest test, or the right to know test” was satisfied.
The judge reasoned that from the plaintiff’s evidence, he agreed he was a frequent letter writer to the press in Guyana on varying issues in Guyana and tended to paint himself as a well-known public figure. As a result, the judge said “one may say that information about him would be such that the public would have an interest in knowing.”
The chief justice said she agreed that the Guyana Times was entitled to conclude that the Office of the President was a reputable source and that in addition, the uncontroverted evidence is that they questioned the source of the information in relation its accuracy, though they did not personally verify the information.
She said that qualified privilege having been established in her view; she then had to examine the issue of malice, which must to be dispelled for the defence of qualified privilege to operate.
Apart from not being pleaded, the judge said that there was no evidence of malice on the part of the Guyana Times and that in this regard, consideration had to be taken of the retraction which, though referred to in the statement of claim, the plaintiff claimed to be unaware of.
No evidence
In relation to the Little Rock television station, the judge also said the plaintiff failed to provide evidence. His evidence, she said, was based solely on what was told to him which she concluded to be hearsay and therefore inadmissible.
She said he admitted not knowing whether a transcript of the programme had been prepared and submitted to his lawyer, even as she pointed out that none of his witnesses had said anything about Little Rock.
Finding that Burke failed to prove his case against Little Rock, the judge dismissed his claim against that television station as well.
In the circumstances, Justice George-Wiltshire dismissed the claims filed against the television stations and awarded $100,000 cost each to MTV and the Times.
To Little Rock, however, the court awarded $100,000 extra while explaining that “no, or no admissible evidence was led against” it.
