[Reader-list] fast food chains

[sanjay ghosh]

Dear Khalid,

This article may not be immediately relevant to your research but it's become important addition to the fast-food chain debate.



McLibel Two win legal aid case

Mark Oliver and agencies
Tuesday February 15, 2005 (1.15pm)

Two campaigners known as the "McLibel Two" should have been given legal aid by the British government to defend themselves against a libel action by the food giant McDonald's, Europe's highest court ruled today.

The ruling by the European court of human rights is a huge victory for the pair, David Morris and Helen Steel, and a pleasing end for them to the 15-year McLibel saga. It is being scrutinised by the government, which may now be forced to change the libel laws. Campaign groups welcomed today's verdict.

The McLibel Two lost a libel case against McDonald's in 1997, in which the relatively penniless environmental activists famously represented themselves against the firm's expensive lawyers. The firm had sued them for libel because of leaflets the two Londoners had distributed, but not written, entitled: "What's Wrong with McDonald's".

In the aftermath of that case, they brought a separate case to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg against the UK government, arguing that English libel law and the lack of legal aid for defendants of defamation cases had forced them to represent themselves.

Today human rights judges upheld their argument, made at a hearing in Strasbourg last year, that having to represent themselves denied them the right to free speech and a fair hearing. The judges said the pair had not been given a fair trial as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory.

At the two-hour hearing in September, the pair's lawyer - for whom they did have legal aid - said the 1994-97 David and Goliath struggle of the libel case was "patently unfair" and there was a stark inequality between the two sides.

The government had previously argued that the fact that the McLibel Two had lost was not evidence they had been let down by the law. A spokeswoman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs said today: "We are studying the judgment very carefully."

The government has already amended the libel laws since it came to power in 1997. Changes introduced in the Access to Justice Act in 2000 mean people may be eligible for legal aid in libel actions under "special measures".

In 1997 at the conclusion of the libel hearing, which at 313 days was the longest court case in English legal history, the McLibel Two were ordered to pay McDonald's £40,000 for handing out leaflets attacking the company's commercial and employment practices.

The pair have never paid the damages. The case is thought to have cost the fast food giant £10m and has been described as "the biggest corporate PR disaster in history". The high court found the leaflet was true when it accused McDonald's of paying low wages to its workers, being responsible for cruelty to some of the animals used in its food products and exploiting children in advertising campaigns.

After today's ruling the McLibel Two said in a statement: "Having largely beaten McDonald's and won some damning judgments against them in our trial we have now exposed the notoriously oppressive and unfair UK laws."

The statement said that following the ruling, "the government may be forced to amend or scrap some of the existing UK laws."

It added: "We hope that this will result in greater public scrutiny and criticism of powerful organisations whose practices have a detrimental effect on society and the environment.

"The McLibel campaign has already proved that determined and widespread grass roots protest and defiance can undermine those who try to silence their critics, and also render oppressive laws unworkable."

The statement ended by noting there was "continually growing opposition for McDonald's and all it stands for". This, the pair said was "a vindication of all the efforts of those around the world who have been exposing and challenging the corporation's business practice".

Earlier, speaking ahead of the outcome, Mr Morris told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that he still had concerns about McDonald's. He said: "I don't think they can change because they are an institution that exists to make profits and to increase their power.

" We can see the effects of not just what McDonald's is doing but what all multinationals are doing to our planet. We believe there's an alternative where people and communities have control over decision-making and resources."

McDonalds has not been commenting on the case in Strasbourg, saying it was a matter for the government as it was not directly involved.

Roger Smith, the director of the human rights and law reform group Justice, said: "This is a wonderful victory for the sheer perseverance of two litigants who have just stuck to the task and insisted upon justice. "I think it's also a victory for human rights and a recognition of legal aid as a basic human right which should be available in all types of cases where it is absolutely necessary."


>From the archive: the 'McLibel' trial
June 29 1994: Leaflet 'a threat' to McDonald 's
June 30 1994: Libel accused attack McDonald 's 'Maxwellian bullying of critics'
January 17 1995: Second Front: The big beef bun fight
December 9 1995: McDonald 's clash sets record
March 9 1996: You and I against McWorld
December 14 1996: 'McLibel' trial ends at last
April 25 1997: My cultural life: Dave Morris - McLibel trial defendant and anarchist
June 20 1997: Empire of burgers
June 20 1997: Long, slow battle in a fast food war
June 29 1997: The McDonald's court case was a big waste of time and space

Useful links
McDonald's
McSpotlight
Film - McLibel: two worlds collide
European Court of Human Rights
European Convention on Human Rights (pdf)


--- COMENT----


	 20-year fight ends with libel law in the dock

Human rights court rules that McLibel anarchists were denied fair trial by the limitations of the legal aid system and they denied a fair trial

John Vidal
Wednesday February 16, 2005
The Guardian

Twenty years ago last month a small anarchist group called London Greenpeace - nothing to do with the environmentalists - began a campaign to "expose the reality" behind what they called the advertising "mask" of McDonald's.

As they handed defamatory leaflets to McDonald's customers in the Strand, London, no one could have foreseen the chain of events which led directly to yesterday's ruling in the European court of human rights, and to Dave Morris and Helen Steel handing out more offending leaflets yesterday outside the same restaurant.

The McLibel two, beaming below a DIY banner reading "20 years of Global Resistance to McWorld", said they were "elated".

"It's a great victory," Ms Steel said. "[This judgment] shows that the British libel laws are oppressive and unfair. I hope that the government will have to change them, and there will be greater freedom of speech for the public."

But it barely needed the European court to decide that the trial was "unfair". Anyone who visited the austere Court 11 of the Royal Courts of Justice between June 28 1994 and December 16 1996 when the epic 313-day libel case was in progress could tell at a glance that the two defendants were at a horrendous disadvantage.

Mr Morris and Ms Steel, who earned about £3,500 a year, had no legal training and were trying to defend themselves in one of the most complex branches of the English law.

Sometimes they were cutting, but not surprisingly they hesitated, paused, and conferred at every point. What was expected to be a six- and then a 12-week trial became a painfully slow slog stretching into legal infinity. It was a triumph for Ms Steel and Mr Morris just to have got through the legal thickets of the 28 pre-trial hearings and into the case proper, but they needed the help of the judge as well as the pro bono advice of Keir Starmer QC and others who shared their civil liberties concern about the case.

McDonald's, on the other hand, had the smoothest of luxury legal machines. The company not only employed Richard Rampton QC, a formidable £2,000-a-day libel specialist, a £1,000-a-day solicitor, and the services of a full legal chambers, but also had access to anything it wanted, and thought nothing of flying in witnesses and experts from all over the world.

Halfway through the longest trial in English civil case history the McLibel two's joint assessment of English libel law was that it was an arcane relic, a legal lottery that favoured only the very rich.

They were appalled that when they took the British government to the European court of human rights in 1991 to try to get legal aid they were refused, bizarrely because it was considered that they were defending themselves rather well on their own. They were infuriated, too, that they were denied a jury on the basis that ordinary people would not understand complex scientific arguments, even though they - as ordinary as they come - could clearly understand the issues well enough to defend themselves. And they found it hard to believe that the burden was always on them on prove with primary evidence what almost every other country would consider legitimate comment.

But the heart of their case was that McDonald's, a company with a turnover of $40bn (£21bn) a year, was unfairly using the British libel laws to sue two penniless people for libel over public interest issues which affect people's every day lives. It was a clear case, they said, of the corporate censorship of opposition and debate backed by the British establishment.

Mr Morris, who shot from the hip during the trial, in contrast to Ms Steel's more incisive questioning, recalled yesterday how they got through the legal nightmare. "We basically rolled up our sleeves and got on with it."

What he did not say was that they frequently felt cruelly punished for their original ignorance of the law. The case may have gone on so long in part because of their lack of legal aid, but it was also because they believed the court treated them shabbily at times. When Ms Steel was suffering badly from stress, she was denied the shortest adjournment.

Yesterday the book was closed on a trial that would not be allowed to last so long today - and would probably never happen, if only because no big corporation would ever seek to pursue two such determined critics.

"It was a nightmare fighting that case, but it was a unique chance to expose the reality of McDonald's," Mr Morris said.

As ever, he took the bigger political picture. "Our overall object has always been to encourage people to stand up for themselves and to take control of their resources, not multinational companies or governments. This should encourage people to better defend themselves."

The final proof that times have changed since 1985 was to be found in the restaurant outside which the McLibel two gave their press conference yesterday. Of five customers chosen at random, two had not only heard of the McLibel trial but agreed that what Ms Steel and Mr Morris had achieved was both important and significant for society and had moved on the debate about food and corporate behaviour. The conundrum, perhaps, was that they had still chosen to eat there.

· John Vidal wrote McLibel - Burger Culture on Trial (Macmillan)

>From flyers to lawsuits

1985 London Greenpeace (LG) launches anti-McDonald's campaign

1989 McDonald's sends spies to infiltrate LG

1990 McDonald's issues writs against five people

1991 All except Ms Steel and Mr Morris apologise. Defendants take the government to European court of human rights to demand legal aid. Denied

1992-4 Pre-trial hearings

1994 Full trial starts

1996 Trial ends after 313 days in high court

1997 Judge finds for McDonald's in five areas, but for the McLibel two in three

1999 Appeal starts

1998 Defendants sue Metropolitan police

1999 Appeal court rules defendants must pay £40,000

2001 Appeal to European court of human rights

2004 Hearing begins

2005 Court ruling 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050227/809c5e0a/attachment.html