Cadwalladr’s legal team confirmed on Saturday, however, that the fight was not over, revealing that they would be taking the case to Strasbourg.
Gavin Millar KC said: “Carole established that over 90% of the publications Banks sued on were lawful public interest speech. So her lawyers believe the order for her to pay 60% of Banks’ costs was a penalty which violated her right to journalistic freedom of expression under article 10 [of the European Convention on Human Rights]. We will seek a ruling to this effect from the European Court of Human Rights.”
She didn’t even have to pay all the costs! And she also lost.
The point about costs is not that they should be a punishment. But why should Banks be out of pocket for defending himself against libel? That is the actual point here. So some journo libels someone. Hmm, OK, happens, sometimes by mistake and so on. Why should that person libelled lose money in trying to get the journo to admit the libel and restore their reputation? That’s the question the Carole supporters have to answer.
If the costs are too heavy she could always sell up and move to Ely.
The court would need to be extraordinarily dim and biased (thus well within the realm of possibility) to accept the argument about percentages since the counter-argument would be that 10% of the publications have caused 90% of the reputational damage.
She would be better off arguing that nobody takes seriously anything that she writes or says
I thought she’d pretty much covered the costs via various go fund me’s meaning that personally she wouldn’t have to pay a bean while raking in all those interview and speaking fees.
Anyway anticipating that the ECHR will somehow find a way of ruling against the nasty brexiteer seems a pretty good bet.
So the ECHR is likely to bring itself into (more) disrepute.
Oh dear, how sad.
I should have imagined that it was a Human Right to defend oneself against false and malicious accusations that damage one’s repuation. Obviously this journalist disagrees.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the ECHR starts questioning whether the claims are “untrue” or simply “unproven”.
Bunch of liars, twisting the facts to come up with a “truth” that fits their narrative.