Lawyers for RTE, Mr Charlie Bird, the farmer, Mr James Howard, and Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn TD will return to the High Court on Tuesday to argue for the apportionment of costs in the longest libel trial in the history of the State. It is expected that both sides will claim that they have won. The jury found that RTE had not proved that Ms Cooper-Flynn had "induced" Mr Howard "to evade his lawful obligation to pay tax by not availing of the tax amnesty". It also found that RTE had proved that Ms Cooper-Flynn had "advised or encouraged" other persons to evade tax. The over-riding decision of the jury, however, was that Ms Cooper-Flynn's reputation had suffered no material injury arising from RTE news reports and that no damages should be awarded to her.
The political fall-out from the case has been played out in the Dail and elsewhere. Ms CooperFlynn, Fianna Fail TD for Mayo, has been compelled to resign her position on the Public Accounts Committee. The Taoiseach has deemed this to be "the appropriate action" in the circumstances. Citing the mantra of "due process", as if a jury of twelve persons had not evaluated the evidence, Mr Ahern said that tax evasion was wrong and encouraging others to engage in tax evasion was equally wrong. The Deputy was neither above nor below the law, the Taoiseach added, while spokesmen clung to the protection of a future appeal. Although painful for all concerned, the significance of this case goes beyond the public personalities involved. While Ms Cooper-Flynn did not win, neither did RTE in a way that would mark a watershed for the media. What the case did bring into sharp focus, however, was the role of RTE and the media generally in the democratic life of modern Ireland. The media have given confused signals in recent years about their place in a democratic society. The only coherent strategy has been confined to seeking changes to a restrictive Defamation Act. It has fallen on deaf ears in all political parties. The problem with that narrow focus is that it limits the justification of the media's role to the individual's Constitutional right to freedom of expression. There is no direct recognition of the media in the Constitution.
Ironically, the original RTE case against National Irish Bank provides a far better-grounded justification for the media's activities. The Supreme Court ruled that there is a public right to know what is going on, even if it is damaging to private or personal interests. All of the best journalistic exposes in recent years - Michael Lowry, Charles Haughey, Ray Burke and others - have been grounded in that principle of the public interest. The jury in the longest libel case found that RTE did not prove that Ms Cooper-Flynn sold a specific policy. More importantly, it established conduct prejudicial to the public interest and awarded no damages as a result. There is an important lesson to be learned from this verdict. The obligation of the media - indeed, the sole justification for investigative journalism - is to serve the public's right to know.