Tuesday 4 September 2012

Brilliant blog post from The Blacksmith Bureau - "Thanks Marcos."






TUESDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2012
 Thanks Marcos

We covered the archiving summary in considerable depth, not to argue a case about its meaning – the Lisbon appeal court has already done that definitively – but so that open-minded people with no knowledge of Portuguese law can get an idea of its critical importance in the libel case between the McCanns and Amaral. There is no evidence to demonstrate that Amaral’s claim that “the child died in the apartment and the parents simulated an abduction” is false.
 What if?
But let’s lift off into fantasy for a moment and assume that somehow the judge accepts that Amaral's claim is, indeed, provably and utterly false. A triumph for the McCanns? You must be kidding.In Portugal “It is up to the claimant to prove that what was said or written about him/her was false because in the event that the information published was at the time true, or that the client gave consent for this information to be released, or there was accidental publication, or a privileged person involved directly in the furtherance of the public’s interest had said or written the defamatory statement, then the claimant may have no case.”


Read the rest of John Blacksmith's excellent post here