In law, there is a Latin maxim which translates to “where there is a wrong, there is a remedy”.
If any civil wrong has taken place, the law will see to it that the offender compensates the offended adequately.
For defamation of character, one of the major remedies is damages. The defamer (who in this case is the offender) is ordered by court to pay a particular sum commensurate with the damage he or she has caused the defamed character.
However, today I would not be talking about remedies for defamation.
Taking our Innoson Vehicle scenario, I will be talking about defense to defamation. By defense, I mean the “thing the defamer can tell the court was the reason for his actions, that will stand as escape route for him or rather, save him from paying damages.”
By law, there are various defences to defamation, and they include:
- Justification: This is where the defamer can show that the said publication is true. In otherwords, he didn’t give any false information.
- Defence of Privilege: The defamer must show that he/she had a duty (be it legal, social or moral) to publish what he did to the person he did. Likewise, that the recipient of the statement had a duty to receive it.
- Fair comment: Where a defamer states, as his defense in a libel action, that the comment is a fair one, he is saying no more than that the story was based upon true facts which were in existence when the comment was made. However, before a comment can be said to be fair the truth of the facts upon which it is predicated must first be established.
In all of these, no where can I see rebuttal of the said publication. So when Suleiman Babachir Lawal who was once the handler of @Hyelasakda handle published a rebuttal on his facebook account, I thought to wonder if same can stand as a defence to defamation in Court. A defence of “I did not do it”.
Really, this should make for a good defence, because for a wrong of defamation to be established against anyone, it must be proved that he/she made the said publication, I established this in my previous article.
Before we go further, let me tell you a secret, though it’s not really a secret. You see that statue that is also erected in front of any court premises, the statue of a blind folded lady with a sword in one hand and a measuring scale in the other, she is called “Lady Justicia” or in plain English “Lady Justice”. The idea of the scale is that she weighs the two sides in every case so as to know in whose interest she should administer justice. So, it is like this, each party will put their evidence on each side of the scale, and the part that weigh heavier is obviously the one saying the truth. On realizing this, Lady Justicia would use the sword (which is the authority and signifies that justice must be served) in the other hand to cut off the lighter part.
What I am saying is, a stronger and more concrete evidence will always weigh heavier when put on that scale.
With the rebuttal of Suleiman Babachir Lawal on his facebook account, it shows that this is what he intends to put up as his defence, if necessary. He would simply be telling the Court that he did not do it. If only it was that easy.
It is not so easy because, in law is “he who asserts must prove” this simply means, he who claims must prove the existence of his or her claim. If you say Femi is a black boy” then the burden is on you to prove that Femi is a boy. Meaning if Suleiman Babachir Lawal is saying that his phone was stolen and that he is not the one that made the defamed publication, he would have to prove such facts, especially if Innoson Vehicle has done its part of proving that the said publication was defamatory in character. He would have to prove to the Court that his phone was indeed stolen and his twitter account was hacked by unknown men who made the said tweet.
Now remember I said that Lady Justicia holds a scale. Metaphorically, that is where his evidences would be placed on. For example, he might need a police report of the stolen item. He would have to show the Court a police report evidencing that he complained about his stolen phone at the police station. Wait, you did not know that any time your phone gets missing or you are robbed of it, you are to make a report at the police station? Well, now you do.
He would also need some IT professional to prove to the court the high possibility of his twitter account being hacked about the same time. Basically, the footprint. That he also didn’t make any tweet about that time, since it was already hacked, and so on and so forth.
In all, Lady Justicia is the one to determine who is lying, and who is not. When she does, her sword would descend.
