CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court has ordered Housing Minister Richard Frederick and a media house to pay EC$60,000 (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) in damages for defamation to a former senior tourism official here.
In its ruling, the Court also ordered that Frederick and McDowall Broadcasting Corporation(MBC) pay interest at the rate of six percent from the date of the judgment in addition to the claimant’s cot of EC$9,000.
The claimant, Agnes Frances, the managing director of “an award-winning company offering advertising and marketing solutions to public and private businesses “in the Eastern Caribbean, had filed a claim for defamation seeking damages, injunctive relief, interest, and costs on a judgment in default of defense entered on May 15, 2019.
Frances told the Court that on August 2, August 2Frederick, the host of a television program titled “Can I Help You” on MBC, had made several defamatory statements that were broadcast.
“The statements suggest that I abused my office as director of Tourism and that, in effect, I am dishonest, corrupt, and cannot be trusted with public or private funds or assets.
“I believe that this is how the defamatory statements would be understood by a reasonable right-thinking man or an average member of society,” said Frances.
She told the Court that the defendants “knew or ought to have known that the words used or meaning conveyed by such words were untrue” and that the defendants “were motivated by malice and published the defamatory statements intending to negatively affect my reputation.”
Frederick and MBC did not file a defense within the time prescribed under the Civil Procedure Rules,2000, and judgment in default of defense was entered against them.
The Court, in February 2021, granted Frances an injunction preventing both Frederick and MBC from repeating the defamatory words and directed the parties to file and serve the necessary statements regarding the assessment of damages that had been scheduled for October October 18
and then 