JAMAICA'S highest legal authority, the judicial committee of the United Kingdom Privy Council, yesterday ordered the Gleaner Company to pay talk show host, Eric Anthony Abrahams, the $35 million libel damage award stipulated by the local appellate court over two years ago.

The English lawlords, whose decision is unchallengeable, also ordered the Gleaner to foot the bulk of Abrahams' legal bill which dates back to 1987 when he sued the company for publishing and re-publishing a libellous story in its Star and Gleaner newspapers.

The money, which will attract six per cent interest from 1996 to 1999 and 12 per cent interest from 1999 to the date of payment, constitutes the biggest libel damage award in local legal history. It started out as an $80.7 million award by a seven-member jury under the direction of then Supreme Court judge, FA Smith in 1996, but was cut down to $35 million by the local appellate court in July of 2000, after the Gleaner appealed.

Dissatisfied with the result, the Gleaner challenged the local appellate court's decision before the law lords in the hope that they'd cut it down on the basis that its size would have a chilling effect on journalism and inhibit the constitutional right to freedom of expression.

However, in their 28-page judgement delivered yesterday, the lawlords said that given the special circumstances of the case -- Gleaner's insistence that it had evidence to justify the libellous story when it didn't and the consensus by the local appellate court that the newspaper's behaviour was outrageous and malicious -- a big award was in order.

"For nearly 16 years the (Gleaner) with all the prestige and resources at their command have doggedly resisted the attempts of Mr Abrahams to clear his name. They have maintained their allegations far beyond the point in 1988 at which it became obvious that they had no evidence to support them... This is not a case in which freedom to publish is an issue.

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