'McLibel' pair win legal aid case
from www.bbc.co.uk, 15th Feb 2005
'McLibel' pair win legal aid case
Two environmental campaigners should have been awarded legal aid in their long-running fight against a McDonald's libel action, a court has found. The European Court of Human Rights said the lack of such aid effectively denied the pair the right to a fair trial.
Helen Steel and David Morris, from north London, were dubbed the "McLibel Two" in a 1990s trial, which found them guilty of libelling the company. The pair had been handing out leaflets called "What's Wrong with McDonald's".
The Strasbourg court's verdict is the end of a subsequent courtroom fight in which the activists accused the UK Government of breaching their human rights. It ruled they did not receive a fair trial as guaranteed under the Human Rights Convention, to which the UK is a signatory, and that their freedom of expression was violated by the 1997 judgment. The pair had argued the UK's libel laws, which did not allow them legal aid, denied them freedom of speech.
The legal wrangle - the longest civil or criminal action in English legal history - was triggered when McDonald's decided to act against former gardener Helen Steel, 39, and former postman David Morris, 50.
Libellous leaflets
The leaflets they handed out, containing damaging allegations about McDonald's, were compiled by London Greenpeace - which is not linked to the Greenpeace International environmental group.
Neither Ms Steel nor Mr Morris had any hand in writing the leaflets, but became embroiled in a libel action launched in 1990 and which ended only in 1997 - with a total of 314 days spent in court.
Longest case in UK history
High Court judge Mr Justice Bell ruled McDonald's had been libelled and awarded the company £60,000 in damages, which was later reduced to £40,000 on appeal.
But he found the leaflet was true when it accused McDonald's of paying low wages to its workers, being responsible for cruelty to some of the animals used in its food products and exploiting children in advertising campaigns.
The case is thought to have cost the fast food giant £10m and was described as "the biggest corporate PR disaster in history".
'Huge power'
In the Human Rights court case, Ms Steel and Mr Morris, both from Tottenham, north London, argued that the government breached their human rights by failing to make legal aid available and because the libel laws obliged them to justify every word of anti-McDonald's allegations contained in the leaflets they distributed.
Their legal team said multinational companies should not be allowed to sue for libel because they wield huge power over people's lives and the environment and therefore should be open to scrutiny and criticism.
But government lawyers argued that campaigners for social justice are subject to the same laws of libel as anyone else, even when wealthy multinational corporations are their targets.
Reacting to Tuesday's decision, a spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs said: "We are studying the judgement very carefully."
Law change?
Celebrating the decision outside a London McDonald's, Mr Morris said they had won "both points hands down".
"We believe in people power and we believe people should make the decisions themselves in their own communities," he said.
"It encourages to people to speak up in their own interests."
Ms Steel described the 15-year case as a "complete nightmare" but said it had been good to fight it.
"Hopefully the government will be forced to change the law and that will mean greater freedom of speech," she said.
David Morris earlier said the pair had already won in principle: "There's growing public concern and debate about the activities of the fast food industry and multinational corporations in general," he said.
"We feel completely vindicated by our stance.
"We can see the effects of not just what McDonald's are doing but what all multinationals are doing to our planet."
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1vegan
and it would be even more bad publicity for McD's if they tried to get the money from them. McD's must be rueing the day they took Helen Steel and Dave Morris to court for libel; it cost them millions of dollars in legal fees and the bad publicity was priceless.
. After Super Size Me showed the consequences of living off its burgers, another documentary will show how the company can be in court. McLibel, which follows Helen Steel and Dave Morris, the two environmental activists through the libel action involving McDonald’s that became the longest in British history. Its hoped for release on 15th April — the 50th anniversary of the fast-food chain’s foundation. 
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