Orville Taylor | Difamous po’lie’tics

Three weeks before elections and the beginning of the school year, a lesson is being learnt. Great wisdom lies in the adage, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’. An ill placed word or expression, can literally topple an empire, or in our present context, a regime.

‘Cock mouth kill cock’! As clumsy and uncomfortable as this saying is, in the environment of a hard election battle; we cannot go soft on nasty things that come from our mouths or fingertips.

Miss Ivy, rubbed into our heads like weed in the palms of young men, that lying lips are ‘abominations’. Liars, especially those who bear false witness, are among the worst of God’s creations.

Lying to another person is bad enough. In the constant game of impression management, there is the continual process of deception. Women wear make up, false hair and in extreme circumstances, modify their bodies. Of course, they cannot deny their DNA. Thus, when the ‘baby father’ expects a brown child, with straight nose and ‘good’ hair, the offspring is a beautifully melanised child, with hair neatly rolled into pimento seeds and nose like sweet pepper.

Worse, when the pubescent girl anticipates inheriting Mom’s Coca Cola bottle shape, she blossoms into the two-litre container.

Under our laws a person’s reputation is something like real property. It is like glass. Once broken, it cannot be fixed without permanent lines. Apart from the aesthetic damage, there will always be doubts regarding the re-fused joint.

In the old days, the law made a distinction between libel, which was written lies about another person, and slander, which was the spoken word. Our anachronistic British overseers, still use this dichotomy, which is another reason why we should handle our business without the Privy Council being our final appellate court.

OMNIBUS TERM

Defamation is the omnibus term.

Tongues and fingers carry out this civil infraction, when at least three elements are present. First, the statement made must be untrue. This is a very low threshold, because, it is what the law calls a strict liability issue. Therefore, it does not have to be a ‘lie’, which is a deliberate expression, with the intention to deceive.

Second, it must have been communicated to a third audience. Now, be not mistaken. If one person knowingly tells a lie on another, it can be harmful but not defamatory. For example, if someone calls another person a thief, to his face, and is in a superordinate position to make a decision about the ‘victim’s’ future, it is harmful and useful in labour matters, in concluding that the working environment is hostile.

However, when the comment is made to even one other individual, then there is defamation.

In broadcasting, in order not to mess up ourselves, we have to know the law like the back of our unclenched hands. After all, it is not a sufficient defence to say, that one reasonably believed the statement to be true. This merely mitigates the sanction.

For this reason, on air personalities are liable for the lies that political activists and others spew, in furthering their objectives. One should therefore understand why certain callers get red flags and even the red button for their reckless comments.

Finally, there must be the potential for harm to the victim’s reputation. The higher the monkey climbs, the more he is exposed. It also matters to whom the lie is told.

Importantly, it is unimportant if it causes actual harm. What counts is that it could or can.

DOUBLE DOWN

A common expression which is used, by lawyers is ‘double down’. This is another awkward lingual combination. A perpetrator, using his tongue wrongfully, and yet refusing to bow, when he should swallow his words, deserves a beating with many stripes.

Miss Ivy, once again, channelling a former community legend, always warned, “when yu wrong yu wrong!”

An individual, who knows that he is wrong and either tries to tamper with or suppress evidence, or stands his lying ground, is bedmates with the Devil. Either that, or he is simply an idiot, who has lost his ability to tell ‘write’ from ‘rang’.

Politicians are not protected from liability, if they speak outside of Parliament, and the only real defence is being truthful.

In the past few days, two versions of a recording of iconic stalwart of the People’s National Party (PNP), KD Knight, have emerged.

Though overlapping, they are conflictual. One, released by Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidate Dr Christopher Tufton, has Knight denigrating President of the PNP, Mark Golding, and the other cautioning that there are elements who say, Golding should never be allowed to become Prime Minister.

Someone is lying. Either the recording was altered by agents of the JLP, or it is undoctored by the PhD.

On the other hand, that presented by the PNP as the original, is either that or itself a clever, manipulation to cover what would be an embarrassing act of self-deprecation, shooting itself in the foot.

If the PNP has irrefutable evidence, that its tape is the true recording, it should proceed and go hard to elicit an apology and retraction and pursue its defamation suit, if it is not forthcoming.

Mark you, if it is indeed modified and Tufton honestly thought it was authentic; then an apology would go a far way.

However, if the PNP’s is fake; he has nothing to recant, and should go to court himself for being called a liar.

It is a big deal, if our most educated leaders, especially with national honours, lie in pursuit of political objectives or personal malice.

Let the chips fall! Enough lies from powerful men.

Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com