McDowell names Adams and McGuinness as members of IRA Army Council.

irish1 wrote:

Sinn Feins threat of violence, Sleepy???

Care to back that accusation up?

what about what happen in Rathenraw, Co Antrim. ?

taken from the irish news 19 August 2004
Meanwhile, veteran republican John Kelly, who recently left the party amid claims it was a “control dictatorship”, has added his support to the community association.

“I find it disturbing that a group of people who choose to differ from Sinn Fein and resigned from Sinn Fein should be harassed and intimidated in this way,” he said.

“If we are looking at parity of esteem and if you’re looking for the rights of the individual to express their concerns you are facing a stark contradiction.”

is that not a treat of violence?

no interest in thread

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=%22ulster+defence+force%22&btnG=Search&meta=

just helping cdebru out

Earthman wrote:

I mentioned before that Paisley said that it was in the Sunday Times prior to he saying it in westminister-they printed the allegation a full three days before paisley went on about it in westminister-so it wasnt first mentioned under privilege.
How does that affect your theory?

link in post wrote:

Earthman wrote:

I dont think you are strictly correct there Necromancer...
The allegations were originally printed in the Sunday Times and mentioned in westminister by Paisley a few days later...


But theres another paper that could have been sued.

*edit* Link

Right, sorry I dont read the Times and the Indo was the first place *I* saw it, i stand corrected.
Do you happen to have a link to the times article in full so I can read it.
Im also sorry I missed that link when you first posted it, I was devoting my energies in that thread entirely into tackling irish1's inconsistancy; thanks for drawing my attention to it because it is very relevant to this thread.

Ive done a google search for Slabs case and got this Indo article:
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=613415&issue_id=6146

Privilage wasnt an issue at all, the defence of Justification was used so the Times had to prove its allegations to be true on the balance of probabilities.

The article, on June 30, 1985, described Mr Murphy as the IRA's ``Officer Commanding for the whole of Northern Ireland''.

The jury of eight women and three men found the article meant that Mr Murphy was a prominent member of the IRA, that he planned murder and the bombing of property and that those words were true ``in substance or in fact''.

Thats a 1985 article that has nothing to do with Adams, I googled for the 2001 article but cant find it reproduced anywhere, nor can I find anything about a more recent libel action taken by Mr Murphy, please speed up my reply by helping me find links.

Meh wrote:

It wasn't a quote. Do you understand what a quote is?

Insulting me, Troll point number 1 in this article.

McDowell Makes a comment, because there is nothing new in it from whats been in the public domain for years there is no defamation.
Even if it was a new comment there is no defamation because mcDowell has qualified privilage on all matters relating to his ministerial office. No defamation.

This is not to be confused with absolute privilage which is whats used when actually in parliment

"Michael McDowell says 'Gerry Adams interferes with sheep'" is a quote. "Michael McDowell says 'Gerry Adams interferes with sheep' and I agree with him, he's absolutely right, Gerry Adams does interfere with sheep, and goats beside" is not a quote.

Thinly veiled abuse and degrodation, Troll point number 2

Yes it is: "they lead a terrorist organisation". Are we talking about the same article?

Read the article again the words "choose to believe" are in there quite clearly, it is the same article. Tempted to give another troll point for that.

They said they CHOOSE to BELIEVE McDowell. The rest of the article is based on that premise, it is in the eyes of the law OPINION.

So how come the Daily Ireland newspaper can sue him?

They will probably claim Malace, if the coutrs accept that as being probable McDowell will have to prove his acqusation in which case Id wager Daily Ireland would win, if he says its his opinion and can show reason for basing it (a garda report at least) there is a good chance privilage will protect him,
It depends about how equivical a statement is upon other things.

Now you're just inventing libel law.

Another troll point for you

this crazy idea of yours?

TROLL

Only "accurate and neutral" reporting of privileged utterances is entitled to privilege.

Ive never said otherwise, up till now you've been argueing though that the comments being reported werent privilaged.

I have no legal advice to the contrary of that, in fact I'm absolutely sure that if Adams pursued the case, he would lose and end up paying the costs.

So am I because he has no case that could defeat privilage!

Meh wrote:

So if you think I'm a troll, report me to a moderator. Either way, please take out of this thread. Read the rules:I don't see any support for any of your assertions, including your assertion that qualified privilege transfers to all repetitions of a privileged statement, not just accurate and neutral repetitions. A link to a judgement or statute would do just fine (like I linked to Reynolds v. Times Newspapers to back up my point about qualified privilege). Again, read the rules:

Im talking about very fundamental things, I cant link to my text book (Essentials of Irish Business Law, Áine Keenan : it deals in depth with torts) so insdead i quoted the book in vertabrum.

If you want a case to demonstrate an example of where an untrue statement was held not to be defamation but where the defence of qualified privilage worked read:
Watt v. Lonsdon (1930)

Reynolds v. Times Newspapers has NO relevance, the words CHOOSE to BELIEVE kinda make it obvious to any and everyone that this is not a piece of fact but opinion

Meh wrote:

I don't see the parallel here, the readers of the Irish Independent are not members of the board of a company along with Gerry Adams. In fact, the vast, vast majority of them have no relationship, whether business, social or personal, with him.The newspaper states, in black and white "they [Adams, McGuinness and Ferris] lead a terrorist organization". This is plainly a statement of fact. (A statement of opinion would be "We believe that they lead a terrorist organization".)The Indo article isn't unbiased, it pretty clearly comes down on McDowell's side.

How am I supposed to take that as anything other than a troll?
The parallel is that the Director had a moral duty to report this even though it turned out to be untrue.
Why did you go off on a tangent about business relations?

You still refuse to accept the phrase "choose to believe" is in the article

Meh wrote:

For the last time, if you think I'm trolling, report me to a moderator using the in the bottom left of my post, as you are instructed to do by the forum rules. Otherwise give it a rest.He was privileged when he repeated the allegations to one very specific set of people. He was not privileged when he repeated them to other people who had no direct connection to the subject of the allegations.I don't refuse to accept that. The article contains both statements of opinion ("choose to believe") and statements of fact ("they lead a terrorist organization").

I think you've realised the truth but dont want to be seen to be wrong, if it makes you feel any better I regularly come out of one of these threads with a different stance than when I went in; thats my aim.
You went off on a tangent about business relations even though it was irrelevent. You know it was irrelevant and thats why you didnt answer my question as to why you mentioned it.
It was the setting in that case but not a part of the law in question and you are trying to be over specific.
The director was privilaged when acting in matters relevent to the business but not to the employees personal life ie as I said earlier and here it is as written in Irish law "The defence of qualified privilage is available when a person makes a communication under duty-legal, social, or moral- to a person who has some corresponding interest to recieve it".
McDowell is privilage when dealing with all matters concerning Juctice.


As for the newspaper article, are you familiar with identities?
Without getting into the nitty gritty of the faculty of reasoning; we set down a premiss upon which our logic is built. The statement "we choose to believe" is the foundation of the article.
The journalist said ppl are afraid of McGuinness because he is a leader in the IRA, thats not a fact or a statement of fact, is a logical deduction that ppl would be afraid of a senior IRA member since we assumed earlier that McGuinness is a senior IRA member.
Thats not to say its not a fact, just that it wouldnt be interpreted as a statement of fact by a court.

Meh wrote:

You're going to have to back this up.

You are in a corner, get out of it how ever you wish

Also please explain how Daily Ireland can sue him if this privilege applies.

Already have, read my posts.

You are stretching semantics well past the breaking point here.

Making logical deductions is how ppl think. How ppl think may not have been part of your education but it has in mine and I am sharing that with you. ppl make a premis, a starting point, they assume this to be true. From this they make deductions and form identities, equations which are true by the way in which they are construced.
The premis for the statment that ppl would be afraid of McGuinness is that he is a member of the army council, this was not presented as a fact it was presented as a premis when they said "we choose to believe".

"People are afraid of Gerry Adams because he is a leader of the IRA" is a statement of fact (three facts to be exact about it), not a statement of opinion.

You have failed to understand my explanation of logic.
Logic is like a house, you set a foundation, build walls then add a roof. A simple illustration I admit but it bares the point out well.

If Adams is not the leader of the IRA, which nobody is claiming {If all that is reported is true, Adams is neither chief of staff nor chairman of the army council}, "People are afraid of Gerry Adams because he is a leader of the IRA" is not by any standards a statement of fact.

Also, Gerry Adams' own legal advice appears to disagree with you here

What is his legal advice? All *Ive* heard is him trying to goad Ahern into using justification as a defence.

-- Gerry didn't mention anything about your "opinions and facts are the same thing, no really" theory when he was explaining why he didn't sue.

You are a liar. I am stating here uneqivically that you are deliberatly misrepresenting what I said. I said, and everyone who reads my posts knows what I said,

A)that the article was one of opinion as shown by the phrase "we choose to believe" McDowell, which was the starting point of the journalists logical deductions which brought them to the conclusion People are afraid of McGuinness because he is a leader of the IRA
that McDowells comments dont have to be factually true in order to qualify for privilage as shown by: Watt v. Lonsdon (1930)

Like the way you edited your post, thats not the extent to what I said re: daily Ireland and there chances in court, what else did I say cos Im fed up repeating myself to a troll
Ive given you the benifit of doubt by explaining myself and giving you solid counter points but if you keep lying about what I said
ignoring what I say and accusing me of inventing law then I will be able to leave this thread safe in the knowledge that Ive identified another troll to the ppl of this board and that in future perhaps ppl wont waste time on your trolls