There is good news on the front page of the UK's Wednesday, February 16,
Guardian, in an article headed: "Libel law review over McDonald's ruling."
The New York Times is also carrying the story (below).

The Guardian story opens:
"The government is to review the libel laws after two penniless
environmental campaigners who were sued by McDonald's, the global burger
chain, yesterday won a ruling at the European court of human rights that
their rights to a fair trial and freedom of expression were violated when
they were denied legal aid.

"The libel battle pitted Helen Steel, a part-time barmaid earning £65 a
week, and David Morris, a single parent on income support, against an
expert legal team headed by a £2,000-a-day libel QC in a 313-day trial,
the longest in English legal history.

We learn that:
"The Strasbourg court awarded damages of £13,750 to Ms Steel and £10,300
to Mr Morris.
Apart from paying the damages, the government will have to open the legal
aid purse strings to impecunious defendants sued by multinational
corporations or wealthy individuals in complex cases."

We get some background on the case:
"McDonald's sued Ms Steel and Mr Morris, both from north London, in 1990
over leaflets headed 'What's Wrong With McDonald's?,' which they
distributed outside the burger chain's restaurants.

"These accused the chain of exploiting children, cruelty to animals,
destroying the rainforest, paying low wages and peddling unhealthy
food....

"Despite the obstacles, the two campaigners won a ruling from the high
court that some of the claims in the leaflet were true, in what was
described as 'the biggest corporate PR disaster in history'. Mr Justice
Bell ruled that the leaflet was correct when it accused the company 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.

Another article, on page 5, headed, "20-year fight ends with libel law in
the dock" details what the defendants were up against and tells us, "the
heart of their case was that McDonald's, a company with a turnover of
$40bn (£21bn) a year, was unfairly using the British libel laws to sue two
penniless people for libel over public interest issues which affect
people's every day lives. It was a clear case, they said, of the corporate
censorship of opposition and debate backed by the British establishment.

The New York Times article, headed "Britain Faulted Over McDonald's Libel
Case" (page C5) leads with the meat of the campaign against McDonald's. It opens:

"Two anti-McDonald's activists convicted of libel in Britain for
criticizing the company's animal rights practices, its environmental
policies and the nutritional value of its food did not get a fair trial
and should be compensated by the British government, a European court said
Tuesday...

"The trial still holds the record as Britain's longest, and helped fuel
anti-McDonald's sentiment throughout Europe.

"In its 1997 decision, the High Court in Britain ruled that some, but not
all, of the information in the pamphlet was correct. Defendants in British
libel cases must prove that everything they said is true, rather than the
plaintiffs proving that what has been said is false. (The court found that
McDonald's was not responsible for starvation in the third world, rain
forest deforestation or food poisoning, but that it was culpable for cruel
treatment of chickens and sows, and for paying low wages.)"

On the update, it tells us:
"On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights said the ruling was
unfair, in part because Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris were not granted legal
aid....
"The European court also weighed in on freedom of expression, saying that
there was a 'strong public interest' in enabling groups outside the
mainstream to 'contribute to the public debate by disseminating
information and ideas on matters of general public interest such as health
and environment.'

You can read the Guardian articles on line at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1415490,00.html and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1415304,00.html and the New
York Times article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/business/worldbusiness/16libel.html

The defendants in the SPCA libel case will easily prove every word they have written is true, not just most. It is going to be easy - because the SPCA keeps serving up the evidence to us daily!