corporate choking of dissent

August 29, 2005 10:07 PM

The SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) isn’t a particularly novel way of stifling dissent: indeed, there are laws in California and other US States to prevent them. Their potential for misuse has also been identified in the Australian context, which has no clear definition of protected free speech. The latest effort at a SLAPP is by Gunns Ltd., a successful forestry company based in Tasmania. They’re suing the ”Gunns 20” for charges including conspiracy and ‘vilification’ (which is not actually a tort). Defendants include a Senator, Dr Bob Brown of the Australian Greens political party. The case is being compared (by the defendants) to the infamous PR disaster McLibel case, however Gunns should perhaps get a better lawyer: their initial pleading has been described by the judge as an "unintelligible embarrassment", showing that a bit of judicial common sense can still work wonders.
posted by wilful (6 comments total)

Disclosures: no Gunns shares, not a member of the Australian Greens, and this is mah first FPP.

Also warning, the link under "conspiracy" is a large .pdf of the original writ.

Can I just mention how much I hate these pathetic naming conventions for controversies? Post watergate, any damn political scandal was –gate, and here we have “McGunns”, which has no relationship to that fine family restaurant chain. Does every SLAPP from now on get called “Mc-“ ?
posted by wilful at 10:11 PM on August 29, 2005

that judge, is it "J Bongiorno...Canbrraaa"? ;)
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:25 PM on August 29, 2005

oh, disclaimer: member of the Australian Greens ;)
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:27 PM on August 29, 2005

oh, it seems that "embarrassment" here has a particular legal meaning, something like "failing to mention any facts that might back up the allegations"...

...similar to the way in which "embarrassment" itself originally meant something like being broke or generally unable to pay...similar kind of thing, yeh?
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:34 PM on August 29, 2005

I can't find the phrase "unintelligible embarrassment" in the text of the link you give.
posted by biffa at 1:31 AM on August 30, 2005

15 The fundamental rule of pleading is contained, for this Court, in RSC r.13.02(1)(a) which requires every pleading to contain, in a summary form, a statement of all the material facts upon which a party relies, but not the evidence by which those facts are to be proved. That the pleading must allege material facts is fundamental. That they must be alleged with certainty follows from the principle stated that the pleading must convey a clear conception of the case being made. If it does not, it will be embarrassing in the sense that that word is used in this area of legal discourse and, in particular, for present purposes, in RSC r.23.02 and its predecessors both here and in England. The full Court of this Court has described a pleading as being embarrassing -
“.....where the pleading is unintelligible, ambiguous, vague or too general, so as to embarrass the opposite party who does not know what is alleged against him.”[2]
posted by warbaby at 10:30 AM on August 30, 2005