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July 2006

Current Event… Rael loses his defamation case before the Superior Court

Columnist Denis Gratton and his employer, Le Droit newspaper, will not have to compensate Claude Vorhilon, also known as Rael, nor the Raelian Church, thus ending a defamation lawsuit based on a column written by Gratton in January 2003.

In a recent judgment written in French, the judge Maurice Laramé described Rael’s claim as “farfelue” (“bizarre” or “airy-fairy”) and concluded that the Raelian Church did not suffer any damage following the publication of Gratton’s column.

In the text that follows, Éducaloi provides a summary of the case and uses the case to explain certain aspects of defamation and the civil liability of journalists.

What is defamation?

In Quebec, the concept of “defamation” includes insults, slander, or derogatory words which attack a person’s honour, dignity, or reputation.

Defamation can be oral or written, public or private, direct or implied, intentional or caused by negligence. If defamation causes harm to the person targeted by it, then damages may have to be paid.

What did Rael and the Raelian Church demand?

Rael and the Raelian Church claimed $75,000 in moral damages for harm caused to their reputation and $10,000 as punitive damages.

Moral damages are amounts paid to compensate for harm to a person’s honour, dignity, or psychological integrity. This could mean suffering, distress and inconveniences, and sometimes nervous shocks or trauma, caused by a person’s fault. Moral damages are not the same as material damages (when property is damaged or profits are lost) and bodily damages (physical injuries).

Punitive damages, on the other hand, do not seek to compensate the person targeted by the defamation. Instead, they seek to punish the person found liable for violating a right protected by the Quebec Charter (such as the right to one’s reputation). Punitive damages can also be called “exemplary” damages because they serve as an “example” that should not be followed for others who may be tempted to copy the behaviour that was punished.

What are the limits imposed on journalists with respect to defamation?

Journalists can be held liable for defamation if they say or write something about a person that harms that person.

But, words used by a journalist are not automatically considered as defamatory because they cause harm to another person. Words used by a journalist are only defamatory if it can be proved that the journalist was negligent or otherwise did not meet certain standards of behaviour. For example:

• The journalist acted maliciously in order to harm or take revenge on someone;
  
• The journalist reported false information because she did not carefully weigh her words, did not double check the facts reported or did not base herself on specific facts;
  
• The journalist reported a fact whose publication is not in the interest of the public and thus invaded the private life of a person only for the sake of entertainment;
  
• Etc.

Which words used by Gratton and Le Droit newspaper formed the basis of the lawsuit?

In his column, the columnist complained about the media attention given to Rael, describing him, among other things, as an “escroc de la pire espèce” (a “conman of the worst kind”), an “énergumène” (a “bizarre individual”) and an “hurluberlu” (an “eccentric person”).

Why did the judge decide that the journalist’s statements were not defamation in this case?

The court begins by stating, at times in humorous terms, Rael’s life story right up to the media attention surrounding the “baby cloning affair”. The court quotes several articles to show the sometimes angry, sometimes amused media frenzy about Rael and the Raelien movement, at the provincial, national and even international levels.

The court places Mr. Gratton’s column in the context of global media and states that “Gratton did not cross the line that could have made him liable for damages”. Other columnists, the court noted, used worse terms and Gratton’s column “could almost pass unnoticed in the sea of publications”.

Moreover, the court questions the behaviour of Rael himself. The court notes that the media attention sought by the guru inevitably leads to these types of statements and that Rael himself does not hesitate to harshly describe the followers of Judaism and Christianity. Finally, the judge states that he himself gives no credibility to Rael’s description of his adventures.

To read the judgment Église Raëlienne v. Gratton (available in French), please visit http://www.jugements.qc.ca.