ACEC
"Anti-cartoon judgment" EDITORIAL  The Toronto Star, May 4, 1998

Love 'em or hate 'em, editorial cartoons of the sort that we carry every day on this page are the lifeblood of democratic politics. Like editorials and opinion columns, they're meant to provoke debate on important social issues. Indeed, more than a few public figures proudly display on their office walls, cartoons that have lampooned them.
     So it's disturbing that a New Brunswick judge, Mr. Justice Paul Creaghan, has found cartoonist Josh Beutel of the Saint John Telegraph-Journal guilty of defaming former teacher Malcolm Ross, by likening him to a Nazi. Beutel was ordered to pay Ross $7,500 in damages for criticizing him at a public forum sponsored by the New Brunswick Teachers' Association, which in turn was ordered to pay Ross $2,100 in court costs.
     "Mr. Beutel's presentation included cartoons and collateral dialogue that, by any reasonable interpretation, a right-thinking person would find depicted Malcolm Ross as an anti-Semite, a racist and a Nazi," the judge found.
     Creaghan has no problem identifying Ross as a racist who opposes racial intermingling, and as an anti-Semite who is vehemently opposed to Judaism. Ross "perceives Judaism as an enemy of the traditional Christian teaching he embraces and he is prepared to do all he can to defend his faith against a group who he sees as being out to undermine it," the judge found.
     This is the same Ross who is a notorious Holocaust denier. After being removed from the classroom in 1991 for his beliefs, he fought the decision all the way to the Supreme Court - and lost.
     But Judge Creaghan found that Beutel overstepped by likening Ross to a Nazi. "He may have unknowingly, or even knowingly, picked up some ideas from current Nazi sympathizers, but to take as a fact that Malcolm Ross is a Nazi goes too far." It does? Does the judge mean to imply that the term "Nazi" can only be used to identify a card-carrying member of Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party? Our Concise Oxford also defines it as "a person holding extreme racist or authoritarian views or behaving brutally." More than a few Seinfeld episodes mock the "soup Nazi."
     It is hard, reading Creaghan's judgment, to understand his reasons for concluding that the cartoonist somehow further injured Ross' already notorious reputation.
     In a famous judgment on a cartoon that depicted former British Columbia cabinet minister - and later -premier Bill Vander Zalm pulling the wings off a fly, the B.C. appeal court overturned a ruling that the cartoon was libellous because the trial judge failed to take into account "the symbolism, allegory or satire and usual exaggeration to be found in cartoons."
     Closer to home, the Ontario Press Council, which serves as a watchdog on press ethics, has long recognized that cartoonists need considerable latitude to ply their art of caricature and exaggeration.
     "A cartoonist traditionally uses grotesque representations of person and things to express controversial, unpopular or satirical opinions on social issues," the council wrote in a judgment last year involving a complaint by the police about a Toronto Star cartoon by Patrick Corrigan. In other rulings, the council has found that editorial cartoonists routinely use "caricatures, grotesque representations" and "exaggeration" to make points. "The council's view is that readers do not generally take cartoons literally," it ruled in 1994.
     In other words, they know silliness when they see it. Creaghan's judgment flies in the face of common sense and accepted journalistic practice. It risks putting a chill on editorial cartooning. That would undermine free speech and spirited debate in this country. This judgment should be appealed, and overturned.


"Limits of free speech at stake in cartoonist's case: Lawyers Interest groups fear libel lawsuit win is a threat to democracy",  by Kelly Toughill, The Toronto Star, January 20, 2000.

HALIFAX - A small plane load of high-priced lawyers arrives in New Brunswick today to launch a new battle over the limits of free speech in Canada.
    The case pits a freelance cartoonist against a public school teacher who was fired for his racist, anti-Semitic views. Cartoonist Josh Beutel was ordered to pay Malcolm Ross $7,500 two years ago for a series of biting satires about the infamous former teacher.
     It might seem like a small case but experts across the country are watching it closely. Five groups that have intervened in the case have sent lawyers to Fredericton where the Court of Appeal will hear two days of argument, beginning today.
     They say the lower court ruling drastically restricts Canadians' right to publicly comment on the important issues of the day, and therefore threatens the basic core of democracy.
     Ross's lawyer disagrees. He says those who are backing Beutel's right to free speech are the same ones who wanted to stifle Ross's free speech a few years ago. He says the case is about whether you can use words and drawings to hurt someone - and get away with it.
     The roots of this case stretch back more than a decade, when Malcolm Ross was teaching in a school near Moncton. Ross published several books that various courts have ruled were racist and anti-Semitic. He also claimed that the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated.
     Ross lost his job in 1991 after a parent filed a human rights complaint. He fought his dismissal up to the Supreme Court, and lost.
     Beutel drew many cartoons about Ross during the protracted court battle, but the current case stems from a presentation Beutel gave to the New Brunswick Teachers' Association. He showed them many of his Ross cartoons, including one that had never been published. It compared Ross to Nazi Joseph Goebbels.
     Ross sued Beutel for defamation and won. The court ruled that because Ross is not a Nazi, the cartoon was libelous.
     "Mr. Beutel's presentation included cartoons and collateral dialogue that, by any reasonable interpretation, a right-thinking person would find depicted Malcolm Ross as an anti-Semite, a racist and a Nazi," Mr. Justice Paul Creaghan found.
     Now lawyers will try to convince the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick that the content of editorial cartoons does not have to be literally true, only a fair comment on current events.
    "Courts must shape libel law so that it allows breathing space for criticism of public figures," says Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which has intervened in the case.
     "Law of libel can cast a serious chill over freedom of speech, particularly where it concerns the right to criticize those in authority.
     "The more opportunity (libel law) gives to sue, the more fragile the right to criticize those in public life, and that goes to the heart of the democratic process."
     The Canadian Newspaper Association, The Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists, the Canadian Jewish Congress and the League for Human Rights of B'Nai Brith Canada have also joined Beutel's appeal.
     Douglas Christie, Ross's lawyer, calls the groups' interest a "monumental irony." "When Mr. Ross was being denied his job because of deeply held religious beliefs, you didn't hear (many) defending his freedom of speech," Christie said.
      "But when he is defamed by false and malicious speech, those people proclaim their right to free speech."
     Christie said Beutel's presentation "mocked Ross's religious beliefs" and humiliated him in front of his peers.
     "The cartoon indicated he was the moral equivalent of Goebbels. It was not true and it was not fair comment."


"Cartoonist wins defamation case on appeal", By Katherine Harding, Toronto Star , June 1, 2001

A New Brunswick freelance cartoonist who was sued for defamation by the province's most-notorious Holocaust denier has won his case on appeal.
     "Honesty in expressing one's real view has been found to be the bedrock foundation for a good defence of fair comment," read the unanimous judgment, delivered yesterday by the province's chief justice, Joseph Z. Daigle.
      The case stemmed from a presentation cartoonist Josh Beutel gave to a teachers' association in which he showed cartoons of Malcolm Ross, a former Moncton, N.B., teacher who was barred from the classroom in 1991 because of his anti-Jewish writings. The cartoon in question compared Ross to Nazi Joseph Goebbels.
      In 1998, Ross sued Beutel for defamation and won. The lower court ruled that because Ross isn't a Nazi, the cartoon was libelous. It also ordered Beutel to pay Ross $7,500 in damages.
     Five groups, including the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, intervened to help argue Beutel's appeal in January, 2000. Lawyers who intervened during the appeal argued that the lower court ruling restricted Canadians' right to publicly comment on important issues.
     "It is a very good judgment . . . It confirms that cartoons aren't to be taken literally. Cartoons are all about distortion, exaggeration and caricature to get a message across," said Paul Schabas, who represented the Canadian Newspaper Association and Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists during the appeal.
JOSH BEUTEL'S BATTLE
A chronology of a Defamation Case

Source: The Toronto Star
Source: The Toronto Star