The legal rebuke for Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly in the judgment delivered by Master of the High Court in Belfast Evan Bell earlier this week was as thorough as it was clear.
Kelly’s legal action for defamation against the writer Malachi O’Doherty, the judge said, had “no realistic prospect of success”, failed to “pass a minimum threshold of seriousness” and was, in his view, “scandalous, frivolous and vexatious”.
The judge specifically identified Kelly’s legal action as a “Slapp” – a strategic legal action against public participation – designed to intimidate critics, or as he put it, “an attempt to silence two bothersome journalists with the threat of legal costs”.
In a decision published on Monday, the case was struck out on the basis that “the proceedings are an abuse of process”.
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The decision of the court in Kelly’s action was a blow to what is widely perceived by both the media and its political opponents – in both North and South – as the Sinn Féin strategy of using defamation law as a political tool. The party denies it is any such thing; all legal actions are a matter for individual party members, it says, and the party has no role, though deputy leader Michelle O’Neill repeatedly declined to say whether the party would contribute to Kelly’s significant bill for legal costs.
But if the contention of senior Sinn Féin figures – the party’s TD Matt Carthy repeated it on Thursday – that there is no party strategy is true, and the rash of defamation actions by Sinn Féiners in recent years is indeed a strange coincidence, it would certainly represent an unusually hands-off approach for the party.
It seems more likely that the spate of legal actions reflects the example given by first Gerry Adams and then Mary Lou McDonald – and also the prevailing culture in the party – which sees itself as challenging an establishment status quo, which in many cases includes the media. Both Adams, the former Sinn Féin president, and McDonald, the party’s current leader, have taken cases against the media.
Whatever the reasons behind it, the proliferation of legal actions in recent years is certainly remarkable. It includes, but is not limited to:
– an action taken by TD Chris Andrews against The Irish Times and Harry McGee personally
– a case taken by McDonald against RTÉ, and by her husband against Shane Ross
– settlements for McDonald from the Irish Examiner and from the former Fianna Fáil TD Declan Breathnach;
– frontbencher Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire settled an action against RTÉ for in excess of €150,000
– a settlement from RTÉ in a case taken by the party’s former publicity director Danny Morrison
– former TD Nicky Kehoe won €3,500 in another case against RTÉ
– Gerry Adams has taken cases against the Sunday World and the BBC
– Aengus Ó Snodaigh settled a case against the Sunday World
Kelly is not the only Sinn Féin member to have had a libel claim rejected.
In November the High Court in Dublin dismissed a defamation claim taken by Sinn Féin constituency organiser Liam Lappin against Belfast newspaper Sunday Life and one of its journalists.
Last year Sinn Féin deputy leader Michelle O’Neill won a defamation action against DUP councillor John Carson over his comments on social media that she would be “put back in her kennel” but she received no payout. The High Court in Belfast found that his comments were abusive, highly offensive and misogynistic, but they fell short of being defamatory and did not award O’Neill any damages.
Sinn Féin correctly makes the case that members of other parties have also taken actions for libel. But they had not done so in anything like the numbers that Sinn Féin members have.
The practical effect of all this, as the National Union of Journalists and international free speech groups have warned, is to make media organisations wary of scrutinising Sinn Féin. This is especially so when it comes to matters that are the subject of legal action.
For instance, Mary Lou McDonald is suing RTÉ over comments made about the Mairia Cahill case, while her husband is suing Shane Ross over parts of his book that dealt with the purchase and renovation of the couple’s house.
There is the growing sense of a political backlash against the Sinn Féin wave of legal actions. In interviews over Christmas, McDonald was repeatedly asked about it, forcing her to defend the practice, while insisting that the party had no policy, strategy or involvement in individual cases.
This is not what McDonald wants to be talking about. She wants to be talking about overcrowded hospitals, about the plight of the Palestinians, about public sector pay and the cost of living and, above all, about housing.
Questions about her party’s fondness for libel writs, however, are unlikely to go away.
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