Iqbal v Mansoor & Ors

Documents prepared for or used in judicial proceedings attract absolute privilege where the complained-of material has any reference to those proceedings. The test is not whether the material is strictly relevant. Ancillary publication to the recipient’s staff in the ordinary course of business may also be protected, but publication to persons unconnected with the proceedings may fall outside the protection. A later claim based on the same publications as an existing harassment claim requires a broad, merits-based abuse-of-process assessment. The discretion to disapply the one-year limitation period for defamation requires consideration of delay, prejudice and evidential effects.

The claimant, a solicitor, sued six defendants in libel over 21 publications concerning his professional conduct. He applied under Limitation Act 1980, section 32A, to disapply the limitation period for the first 19 publications.

The defendants sought summary judgment or strike-out on grounds including absolute privilege, re-litigation of three publications already relied on in harassment proceedings, pleading defects and an extended civil restraint order. The issues were whether the publications were privileged, whether the repeated claim was abusive, and whether it was equitable to permit the time-barred publications to proceed.

1. On summary judgment, the claimant had to show a real, rather than fanciful, prospect of success. The case had to be more than merely arguable.
2. Statements of case filed in proceedings fell within the second category identified in Lincoln v Daniels [1962] QB 237. Witness statements and similar documents were protected where they had any reference to the proceedings. The test in Smeaton v Butcher [2000] EMLR 985 was whether the material had no reference at all to the proceedings. Offensive, malicious or irrelevant allegations could remain protected if they had some reference to the proceedings.
3. Ancillary protection extended to publication to the claimant’s staff in the ordinary course of business. Publication of the SRA complaint to staff raised an arguable issue because they were unconnected with the proceedings. Summary judgment was refused on that publication alone.
4. The claim based on the first three letters was an abuse of process. Applying the broad, merits-based approach in Johnson v Gore-Wood [2002] 2 AC 1, as explained in Stuart v Goldberg Linde [2008] 1 WLR 823, the claimant had pursued harassment proceedings on identical facts while retaining the defamation claim.
5. The application under section 32A of the Limitation Act 1980 was refused. The claimant’s reasons for delay were unpersuasive, and the balance of prejudice favoured the defendants. The claimant could have issued proceedings promptly and sought a stay.
6. The pleading defects were capable of rectification and did not independently justify strike-out. An extended civil restraint order was refused because persistent claims or applications that were totally without merit had not been established.

Not an appeal. The judgment records earlier decisions in related harassment proceedings, including [2011] EWCA Civ 123.