BLOGGER, journalist, university instructor and communications consultant Rhoda Bharath has been ordered to pay Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal for a defamatory post on her social media page in April 2020.
Justice Margaret Mohammed ordered Bharath to pay general damages of $75,000 and $19,000 in costs. She was also restrained from repeating the “serious, accusatory and sarcastic” comments. The judge’s order was made on February 21.
In an immediate response, Moonilal said, “As I have said repeatedly, my political opponents have been working overtime to tarnish my reputation.
“I have never been approached by police and asked one single question about my stewardship as a minister of government in the partnership administration.
“Those who peddle that propaganda will face the court.”
Bharath posted about the ruling on her Newsauce Facebook page and said she was considering the legal avenues available to her in the matter. Her post concerned the appropriateness of Moonilal donating 100 cases of bottled water to the police while allegedly under police investigation.
Moonilal contended that the defamatory post led a reasonably-minded person to believe he was being investigated by the police for some illegal activity.
In her defence, Bharath said she was entitled to raise questions on a newspaper article about an alleged rift between the police service and the government during the pandemic and Moonilal’s donation of 100 cases of water to the police service.
She claimed it was public knowledge that Moonilal was the subject of an investigation by the police since 2017 and also produced a purported search warrant which she posted. Bharath maintained the information was of public importance, factual, already in the public sphere and undisputed.
She asserted that she held a social, moral, constitutional and public interest duty as a journalist.
However, in her ruling, Mohammed said the post was written with a “serious and sarcastic tone.”
“In my opinion, a typical ordinary reader scrolling through Facebook would not pause to consider the detailed meaning of items listed in the defendant’s Facebook post, but would have formed the impression from the entire post that the commissioner’s financial management of the TTPS at that time in the covid19 was a cause for concern and this included accepting water as a gift from the claimant which was not proper as he was being investigated by the TTPS.
“I am of the view that an ordinary reader of Facebook scrolling through the post quickly would form the view that the claimant was involved in some sort of illegality that warranted an investigation by the TTPS and that it was wrong for him to be donating water to the TTPS.
“In this regard, the meaning is defamatory of the claimant,” the judge said.
She said the sting of the words used “strongly insinuated” the allegation that Moonilal was being investigated by the police “was a statement of fact.”
“The ordinary reader scrolling quickly would have formed the impression that it is so.”
Turning to Bharath
