Assumpta Piva
HONIARA: A local newspaper has been ordered to pay a total of $116,000 in damages and legal costs to a former prime minister and his secretary.
The High Court made the order after the Island Sun newspaper lost a defamation case Dr Derek Sikua and secretary Jerry Manele took against them.
Justice David Chetwynd ordered the paper to pay $75,000 in damages and $41,000 for legal costs.
Lawyer for the two men, Primo Afeau, confirmed the court order, but added that the newspaper is yet to make the payments.
Island Sun editor Priestley Habru has also confirmed receiving the court order.
“We’ll pay,” he said.
The order stemmed from a front page article, an editorial, and a cartoon the paper published in 2008.
It claimed Dr Sikua and Manele got drunk and misbehaved while they were on an official trip to New York in September 2008.
This was when the two officials were attending the United Nations 63rd General Assembly meeting.
The paper claimed Dr Sikua was drunk, threatened his wife with violence and because of his drunkenness missed a speech the then Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd was scheduled to deliver to the UN General Assembly.
The article described Manele as a “drinking colleague” and was criticised for “allowing Dr Sikua to behave in such a drunken manner”.
Dr Sikua and Manele denied the allegations and sued the paper and its editor Priestley Habru for defamation.
In its defence, the Island Sun said what was published was true, that it was published in the public interest and was fair comment made without malice.
But High Court judge Justice David Chetwynd said the Island Sun and its editor were unable to prove the allegations they published against Dr Sikua and Manele.
“The first and second defendants raised the issue of fair comment. It is long established law that ‘in order to give room for the plea of fair comment, the facts must be truly stated.
“Or as said in another case, to found a plea of fair comment, there must be sufficient substrum of fact stated.
“In this case, there is no evidence from the first and second defendants of any truth or fact,” Justice Chetwynd said.
The judge rejected suggestions from the paper’s lawyer Wilson Rano that it was the offices of the two individuals that were being criticised rather than the individuals holding office.
“I do not accept that argument. The office and the person holding the office cannot so easily be separated.
“A libel does not cease to be a libel simply because the person wronged holds a public office,” Justice Chetwynd said.
He said the material published have been shown to have no basis in proven fact.
“The ordinary meaning of the words in the reports and the depiction in the cartoon are clear.
“There is no room for ambiguity as to their ‘ordinary’ meaning.
“The most benign reading of the material clearly ascribes to the first claimant (Dr Sikua) the characteristics of a drunken violent man.
“As to the second claimant (Manele), he is portrayed as being incompetent and irresponsible.
“The published material is defamatory. There can be no other conclusion,” Justice Chetwynd said. - Solomon Star/Pacific Media Watch
Article: Former PM Wins Defamation Case
Pacific Media Watch
