There was an interesting contrast this week between the libel action in England brought by Ian Botham and Allan Lamb against Imran Khan, and evidence presented at the national conference on women in policing in Australia.
Policewoman Susan Bailey told of how her male colleagues had inflicted all sorts of verbal (and other indignities) on her and how she had been told by them to be tougher, to be more robust and take it without complaint.
That is a fairly common reaction to female complaints about verbal abuse in the workplace.
Compare that to the male reaction of the two English cricketers and the institutional support for them to get their case heard. Botham and Lamb complained that Imran Khan had accused them of cheating through ball tampering, being racist and being lower class. Oh, diddums.
Were they expected to be tougher, more robust and take it without complaint?
Oh, no. Off they went to the High Court. In the end they lost. Imran said he had been misreported by the Indian newspaper and English tabloid upon which Botham and Lamb based their case. But the seriousness with which the British legal system took the case was laughable. The case ran to $1 million in legal costs and three weeks of sitting in England’s highest court at first instance. And it is no different with these sorts of cases in Australia. If anything we are worse. We gave an even more resource-draining hearing to an allegation that a footballer was the sort of person who would allow himself to be photographed with part of his penis showing. Really.
The British and Australian courts should have much more important things to do than listen to childish cricketers arguing over whether someone cheated or called someone names. It is the sort of thing primary school teachers deal with daily. It should not be the stuff of courts.
But it is, and it is almost universally a male pre-occupation.
I have skipped through the only available electronic databases of court cases with given names in the headnote looking at the ratio of male and female defamation litigants. Though the sample is small, it gives such an overwhelming pattern of males not being tough and robust that I am sure it would be borne out by a detailed analysis.
In 57 ACT cases involving defamation and a court judgment going back to 1982, there is only one female plaintiff (against some grubby sensationalism dished out by the Truth). A female is a joint plaintiff in another case with a joint male director. In 20 Tasmanian cases there is one husband-and-wife case and no sole female plaintiffs.
In 25 Northern Territory cases there are two female defamation plaintiffs, but both were tacked on to unfair dismissal cases (probably on the advice of male lawyers). The Canberra Times experience, too, shows males dominate the threats to sue.
The huge resources of public courts and private legal talent given to little boys quarrelling over who called who which name is quite scandalous, especially in an environment of slashed legal aid for people with personal injuries at work or on the roads, people facing criminal charges or people resolving family-law disputes.
ACT Gary Humphries suggested at a recent conference that given a list of important rights, the right to sue for large sums of money for damage to reputation must rate very low indeed. He suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that perhaps the right should be abolished if it could not be made less cumbersome. His suggestion should be taken very seriously indeed. Would Britain be any worse off if Botham and Lamb had to stomach the name-calling? The jury wisely appeared to take the thing with a great deal of scepticism and sent them packing, but the costs had already been expended.
The real problem is a mixture of male ego and money. As soon a big verdicts are available, the expensive lawyers move in and cases are heard in the expensive higher courts with expensive drawn-out hearings.
It would be better to replace big damages with a maximum of, say, $5000 (unless they can quantify actual loss of job or business) and a court-ordered apology. It would be heard in the magistrates’ court, though even that is too dignified for some of the claims.
More importantly, there should be no costs awarded; each should always pay their own. This would prevent media organisations bullying the less well off with the threat of big costs awards. It would also stop wealthy plaintiffs sending in the big lawyers. The expensive lawyers would not be drawn to cases with so little money at stake and no prospect of the other side having to pay.
The whole expensive male-ego-driven fiasco would end, and the courts would have more time to deal with matters of more moment … like giving women harassed at work a better deal.