Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Ap­peal Court Judges Nolan Bereaux, James Aboud and Mark Mo­hammed yes­ter­day re­served their judg­ment in a case brought by Trinidad Ex­press, which was or­dered to pay in­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young over $500,000 two years ago.

In Oc­to­ber 2023, High Court Judge Bet­sy Ann Lam­bert Pe­ter­son award­ed Young $375,000, plus in­ter­est at a rate of 2.5 per cent per an­num, from 2019 to when the judg­ment was hand­ed down. She al­so award­ed Young ag­gra­vat­ed and ex­em­plary dam­ages in the sum of $125,000 and costs to­talling $71,500.

The judg­ment came af­ter Young sued the news­pa­per for defama­tion when his im­age was used in an ad­ver­tise­ment, cap­tioned “24 scan­dals in 24 months.”

In pre­sent­ing their case, at­tor­ney for One Caribbean Me­dia, un­der which the Trinidad Ex­press falls, Faa­rees Ho­sein, said the tri­al judge erred in ac­cept­ing the dic­tio­nary mean­ing of the word scan­dal and did not con­sid­er the to­tal­i­ty of the ad. He said while it could have a defam­a­to­ry mean­ing, it was not the news­pa­per’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ver­i­fy the con­tents of the ad, as it was not an ar­ti­cle, which car­ries spe­cif­ic guide­lines when it comes to pub­lish­ing.

With the coun­try ready­ing it­self for a gen­er­al elec­tion, Ho­sein said po­lit­i­cal ads would be used and ques­tioned if me­dia hous­es were now sup­posed to ver­i­fy every­thing con­tained in said ads be­fore pub­lish­ing.

Aboud ques­tioned Ho­sein on why the ad was used, with Ho­sein say­ing the news­pa­per did not ac­cept or adopt the ad in part or in whole and ought not to be held li­able, not­ing there was a dis­claimer stat­ing the ad was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed and tar­get­ed.

In re­sponse, Young’s at­tor­ney, Col­in Kan­ga­loo, said there was no de­fence against the defama­tion his client faced.

He said the ad was not in the pub­lic’s in­ter­est and sub­mit­ted that the ve­rac­i­ty of the claim made in the ad­ver­tise­ment was dis­missed in an ar­ti­cle car­ried in the very same news­pa­per weeks ear­li­er.

To bol­ster his point, he quot­ed tri­al Judge Pe­ter­son say­ing: “The com­ment must be a mat­ter of pub­lic in­ter­est. Mat­ters of pol­i­tics and gov­ern­ment are usu­al­ly mat­ters of pub­lic in­ter­est, giv­en that the con­tents of the pub­li­ca­tion are not ac­cu­rate. And this was known to the de­fen­dant pri­or to the pub­li­ca­tion of the ad­ver­tise­ment. The in­for­ma­tion in the ad­ver­tise­ment could not have been a mat­ter of pub­lic in­ter­est. It is in the pub­lic that the rep­u­ta­tion of pub­lic trust should not be de­based false­ly. In the in­stant case, it would not be in the pub­lic in­ter­est to know­ing­ly pub­lish the ad­ver­tise­ment con­tain­ing false in­for­ma­tion.”

Af­ter tak­ing a few min­utes to con­sult, the Ap­pel­late Judges said they need­ed time to con­sid­er the case and gave be­tween May and June as a time­frame fo rul­ing.

By that time, Young will be prime min­is­ter, as he will be sworn in on Mon­day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley demits of­fice to­mor­row.