The High Court has ordered Associated Newspapers (Ireland) Limited to provide discovery of background documents relating to the preparation of three articles at the centre of a defamation action brought by Garech Browne. It refused discovery of documents relating to a separate District Court hearing.
The application concerned articles published by the Irish Mail on Sunday and the Irish Daily Mail in April and June 2009. Browne’s claim is that they formed part of a campaign portraying him as petty-minded, disloyal and ungenerous towards a friend. He alleges the coverage treated a substantial theft from his home as trivial and portrayed him as reporting a friend to gardaí over a teapot and two teaspoons. He says his solicitors supplied the newspaper group with what he described as the correct version of events after the first article, but the second and third articles were published anyway. He relies on those circumstances in pleading malice.
The defendant denies the meanings Browne attributes to the articles, pleads justification and fair comment, relies on section 23 of the Defamation Act, and denies that the words in their ordinary and natural meanings are capable of being defamatory. Browne’s reply pleads express malice.
The discovery request had two categories: background documents in the defendant’s possession or procurement relating to preparation of the articles; and documents relating to a Bray District Court hearing involving charges against Count McDonnell. The defendant argued the second category was irrelevant, saying its reporting was limited to evidence given in court. It also submitted that Browne did not dispute that charges had been brought against Randall McDonnell and that a nolle prosequi was later entered.
Mr Justice Ryan agreed that the District Court events raised no factual issue in the defamation proceedings and that the journalist’s notes were not relevant to the alleged campaign. He therefore refused discovery of that category.
He reached a different conclusion on the preparatory materials. Browne had specified the alleged campaign and the facts on which he intended to rely, providing a sufficient basis of relevance for discovery to assist the fair disposal of the proceedings. The judge did not decide whether unpublished preparatory materials could ultimately support the campaign allegation; he said that issue did not need to be resolved at this stage.
The order does not determine the defamation claim. The judgment states that any claim of privilege or other basis to resist disclosure remains open, as does any objection to admissibility at trial.