Can a jury be defamed?

Anonymous said...
I just hope those who are partaking in this ridiculous occupation of defaming jury members, have the money to cover the costs of 12 defamation cases, taken against them.

Defamation
1. The civil law cause of action of defamation may be brought against any one who publishes (either through written or spoken word) a defamatory statement about a person.
2. A statement is published if it is conveyed to a third person.
3.A plaintiff must prove that the statement refers to them (although they do not have to be specifically named).
4. A person will generally be identified if someone who knows them thinks the statement refers to them.
Secondly, a plaintiff must prove that the statement was in fact defamatory.
5.A statement will be defamatory if it tends to lower the plaintiff in the opinion of right thinking members of society.
6. A statement may also be defamatory if it exposes a plaintiff to hatred, ridicule or contempt, or if it tends to make people shun or avoid the plaintiff.
7. A plaintiff does not need actual evidence that the statement in fact caused people to think less of them or that it was believed by those to whom it was published.

Given note number 3, you will see that the person does not have to be mentioned by name. Therefore, simply mention a member of a jury from a particular trial, is sufficient proof for each and every member of that jury, to presume the statement was about them.

Number 4, could include any member of NZ society, who knows about the jury in the Bain trial, and therefore, knows who the statement was referring to. ie any member of that jury.

Number 6 is particularly relevant, because as soon as making the claim about a jury member, the defamers, then go on to encourage other posters to ridicule the jury member. Thus confirming point 6.

It is not often someone is stupid enough to defame 12 people at once, and then go on to provide further evidence of the claim by organising the mass ridicule of the person/people defamed.

To quote Kulkkulbelle ' you've been warned'.

August 16, 2010 4:44 PM

I'm not sure that a Jury can be defamed in a way that could lead to a law suit. Before I explain why I should say that the Bain jury has been defamed without doubt, and based on scurrilous, unable to be proven lies and misinformation much of which I maintain started with the 'opinion' piece in The Press.

The problems that I could see for a Jury to sue would be that there would necessarily need to be a collective agreement for them to do so. Any remedy for them might be more appropriately directed at The Crown to whom they had sworn to do their duty. This however, would not necessarily preclude an individual juror from suing. The particularly disgusting and defamatory attack on a particular juror at the moment on the TM boards would be a case in point, having regard to the both implied and stated allegation that this juror 'might' have slept with Karam either before or after the verdict and which somehow influenced the outcome of the Trial. In the case of Karam, who already has a case running, and which I understand has had it's statement of claim amended to include more defamatory statements made since his paperwork was filed, it would be a relatively straight forward matter to include this most recent defamatory claim.

On the issue of who is liable as you posted above it is the publisher, you may be aware, that TM have apparently already applied to the High Court for a motion to allow it enjoin particular posters. I understand that would be a fall back type defence - TM saying we are not the publishers, the posters are. In fact I believe both the TM and the posters are the publishers. Now that kalnovitch, dcameron, and cookingwithgas have also hung another noose about their necks with this absolute unprovable carbage we may see that TM's hand is slightly strengthened in attempting to remove itself from liability with the argument that whilst earlier material was 'opinion' the current stuff is defamatory and therefore the responsibility of the posters only. To do that it would have to have been removed quickly and to this point TM have been very slow in reacting to a lot of published stuff that ought to have been removed immediately, or indeed never published.

But back to the Jury as a group, whilst they may be unable or unwilling to sue as a group (we have to accept they're merely a cross section of society who now have gone about getting on with their lives - albeit, with this dross directed at them from June last year,) I still see a responsibility of The Crown to these people. Whilst the Jury hopefully are generally anonymous to the Public (whilst not to the hate-siters as I printed earlier)the ongoing attack against them in the only public venue to my knowledge still allowing it (TradeMe) continue as a Contempt of Court issue more than a year after the trial.

I hope readers here will direct complaints to the Ministry over this, citing the information lifted from the hate-sites and published here, and material stored on TM files and on Votemenot. There is a long history exposed there, with nina_s and rodney osook having been very prolific on the matter earlier. In any such complaints I would imagine the Ministry of Justice should be asked to examine under oath the relationship between Kent Parker, Vic Purkiss, Neil Purkess and van beynan in the first instance and the Editor of The Press in the second.