Retired High Court judge awarded $80 million in defamation case criticising justice system

A businessman who authored a book critical of the Jamaican judicial system that has been widely circulated locally and internationally has been ordered to pay a retired High Court judge over $80 million for defamation.

The order was made in the Supreme Court last month in a lawsuit filed by Justice Roy K. Anderson, a legal scholar and retired Supreme Court judge, against Dwight Clacken over a tome the businessman penned in 2015.

The book is based on a legal dispute between Clacken and his business partners, which was presided over, in part, by Justice Anderson.

It was written after he waited nearly 13 years for the Supreme Court to adjudicate the dispute, which was filed in the Supreme Court in 2002, Clacken told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.

Clacken disclosed, too, that his former business partners have filed a defamation lawsuit against him over the book. That case is set for trial in 2025.

Stephanie Williams, the attorney who represented Justice Anderson, called the damages awarded to her client “important” because it again sets the standard for “the contest between free speech and defamation”, which has “become prevalent in our society”.

“It should serve as a reminder to the public that there are limits to free speech and that the courts will continue to protect the reputation of those worthy of protection,” Williams said yesterday.

“It does not diminish the right to free speech. The case affirms the position that has always existed that when exercising our right to free speech, we must be responsible and it must be accurate and fair.”

However, Clacken stood by his book yesterday, disclosing that he has already filed papers in the Court of Appeal challenging the ruling in the defamation lawsuit.

“So, it doesn’t suit me to make any comments at this time,” he said, while insisting that the contents of the book are “100 per cent true”.

“The Jamaican public should learn from that book and the people running the country should also pay attention to it,” he added.

The book was first published in hardcopy and later distributed by global e-commerce giants Kindle, Amazon and Barnes & Nobles, according to the 46-page judgment by Justice Annmarie Nembhard delivered on March 17.

‘TREMENDOUS EMBARRASSMENT AND HUMILIATION’

According to the judgment, Justice Anderson became aware of the book after he received a package from a member of the legal fraternity containing several pages from Clacken’s book. That led him to purchase a copy, he acknowledged.

What he found, in complaint in the lawsuit, caused him to suffer “tremendous embarrassment and humiliation”.

Citing comments made in at least five pages of the book, he argued, too, that the businessman acted with improper motive and described the publication as “high-handed and contumelious”.

Anderson charged that the book was published either with the full knowledge that the disputed statements were libellous of him or with a reckless disregard as to whether they were.

He said via a letter dated May 31, 2016, his attorneys wrote to Clacken demanding that he retract the defamatory material cited in the book and/or issue a public apology.

But Anderson said the businessman refused both requests.

Clacken, in his response to the lawsuit, said the book is a “narrative of his life experiences, including, although not limited to, his experience and encounters with the Jamaican justice system”.

He argued that it was done for the “precise” purpose of highlighting the deficiencies in the justice system and inviting scrutiny of those issues.

Relying on the defence of fair comment, Clacken asserted the narratives in the book are as result of his first-hand experience with and impressions of the justice system, “which are honest and truthful”.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com