Foundation For Humanity’s Adulthood v Fairfax

 

20 February 2003 Media Release

A ‘strikeout’ application will be heard today in the defamation case brought by Jeremy Griffith, Tim Macartney-Snape AM and the Foundation for Humanity’s Adulthood (FHA) against John Fairfax Publications Pty Ltd and Reverend David Millikan.

 

The NSW Supreme Court is considering 23 imputations arising from a 1995 article titled ‘Prophet of the Posh’ written by Rev Millikan for The Sydney Morning Herald. An additional 15 imputations arise from an article by Anthony McClelland.

 

Foundation Director and mountaineer Tim Macartney-Snape has stated previously “this court action is a fight to uphold the right to freedom of expression, the right for new ideas to receive a fair hearing in our society”.

 

The defamation action against Fairfax, Rev Millikan and Anthony McClelland, which involves 34 Foundation members, marks the second round of legal proceedings being pursued by the organisation.

 

This week’s hearing follows the Foundation’s successful negotiation of a similar strikeout application in its defamation case against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in November 2001. In that matter, a 7A jury hearing beginning on 26 May 2003 will determine whether or not the 10 plaintiffs, who include Macartney-Snape and biologist Jeremy Griffith, were defamed by the 1995 Four Corners Program, ‘Prophet of Oz’, also made by Rev Millikan.

 

The FHA is a small philanthropic organisation which supports the biological understanding of the human condition put forward in Jeremy Griffith’s books, Beyond the Human Condition and Free: The End of the Human Condition.