Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness­man An­drew Gabriel has won his ap­peal over the Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion to award him on­ly $10,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for defama­tion by cur­rent Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Phillip Alexan­der.

De­liv­er­ing the judg­ment yes­ter­day, five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil ruled that the lo­cal Court of Ap­peal was wrong to award nom­i­nal dam­ages, over­turn­ing its re­duc­tion from a High Court award of near­ly $775,000 for harm to Gabriel’s rep­u­ta­tion.

The law­suit arose from state­ments made by Alexan­der on a ra­dio talk show and in a sub­se­quent Face­book post in Feb­ru­ary 2017. Gabriel, own­er of an in­sur­ance bro­ker­age, ar­gued that the state­ments ac­cused him of se­ri­ous cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal con­duct, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to his rep­u­ta­tion and emo­tion­al dis­tress to him and his fam­i­ly.

In the High Court, Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in award­ed $525,000 in dam­ages for hurt feel­ings and loss of rep­u­ta­tion, plus $250,000 in ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages. While oth­er state­ments made by Alexan­der af­ter lit­i­ga­tion be­gan were raised, Jus­tice Gob­in on­ly con­sid­ered them in as­sess­ing ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages.

In No­vem­ber 2023, the Court of Ap­peal up­held Alexan­der’s chal­lenge, rul­ing that the ra­dio state­ments were not defam­a­to­ry and that the so­cial me­dia post on­ly re­ferred to Gabriel, not his fam­i­ly. The court al­so found Alexan­der’s post-lit­i­ga­tion com­ments were not defam­a­to­ry.

Writ­ing the Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment, Lord George Leg­gatt not­ed that Alexan­der’s threat to “ex­pose” Gabriel for al­leged cor­rup­tion was defam­a­to­ry, de­spite be­ing con­di­tion­al.

“The fact that the threat was fu­ture and con­di­tion­al does not af­fect the grava­men of the li­bel…A gen­er­alised al­le­ga­tion of crim­i­nal­i­ty may be less dam­ag­ing than a more de­tailed and spe­cif­ic one, but it is still defam­a­to­ry,” Lord Leg­gatt said.

Re­gard­ing the so­cial me­dia post, Lord Leg­gatt found it tar­get­ed Gabriel’s po­lit­i­cal as­so­ciates in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) rather than his fam­i­ly.

“Prop­er­ly in­ter­pret­ed, the sec­ond state­ment was not rea­son­ably ca­pa­ble of bear­ing the mean­ing which the judge gave it, and the Court of Ap­peal was en­ti­tled to find what the or­di­nary, rea­son­able read­er would un­der­stand the state­ment to mean,” he said.

Lord Leg­gatt al­so agreed with the Court of Ap­peal that Alexan­der’s lat­er state­ments were not defam­a­to­ry, but he strong­ly crit­i­cised the Ap­peal Court’s as­sess­ment of dam­ages.

“An award of nom­i­nal dam­ages is whol­ly in­suf­fi­cient to com­pen­sate Mr Gabriel for the in­jury to his feel­ings, se­ri­ous­ly ag­gra­vat­ed by Mr Alexan­der’s sub­se­quent con­duct and mal­ice. If any­thing, it gives a false im­pres­sion that the claimant’s rep­u­ta­tion is of lit­tle worth,” he said.

The Privy Coun­cil al­so re­ject­ed the Ap­peal Court’s rea­son­ing that award­ing full dam­ages could un­der­mine free­dom of po­lit­i­cal speech.

“Those rights do not pro­tect speech that is ma­li­cious,” Lord Leg­gatt said. “The le­git­i­mate ex­er­cise of those rights is not im­paired by award­ing full com­pen­sa­tion for in­jury to rep­u­ta­tion and feel­ings in a li­bel case where mal­ice has been proved. Al­low­ing false­hoods to be pub­lished and spread with im­puni­ty poi­sons pub­lic dis­course and un­der­mines the con­di­tions in which free­dom of ex­pres­sion can flour­ish.”

The Board has or­dered that a new judge be as­signed to de­ter­mine the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for Gabriel based on its find­ings.

Gabriel was rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC, and Clay Hack­ett, while Alexan­der was rep­re­sent­ed by Gre­go­ry Ar­mor­er and Anu­rad­ha Dean.