THE Supreme Court has ordered the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation to pay $150,000 in general damages to medical practitioner Dr Shanjivan Padarath for online defamation.
The ruling, delivered on August 28 by Justices Anthony Gates, Terence Arnold, and Lowell Goddard, quashed a Court of Appeal decision and reinstated a High Court decision which had found liability against FBC and reporter Savaira Tabua.
The case related to an online news article published by FBC in September 2016 titled “Fake Doctor to appear in Court” alongside a photograph of Dr Padarath. The image had been pulled from FBC’s archive footage of an earlier, legitimate public health broadcast on conjunctivitis in which Dr Padarath was featured.
Although the text referred to an unnamed and unqualified individual operating a home clinic in Nasinu, readers and colleagues recognised Dr Padarath from the accompanying photograph and named and defended him in their comments on the article.
Justice Goddard highlighted that an article, headline, and illustrative photograph must be evaluated as a whole. The court found that using Dr Padarath’s image created a natural implication that he was the fake doctor, making the publication inherently defamatory.
In addition to the $150,000 damages award, FBC is to pay six per cent interest backdated to March 2023, along with $19,000 in legal costs.
