Court dismisses Miguna Miguna's case against the Standard Group

The High Court sitting in Nairobi on February 12 dismissed a case filed by controversial author and activist Miguna Miguna against the Standard Group.

Lady Justice Aburili Roselyne Ekirapa ruled that Miguna, in choosing to represent himself, had “hopelessly” prosecuted his own case and failed to satisfy the court that he has a name worth defaming.

Miguna had filed a defamation suit against The Standard newspaper, Standard Digital and  KTN, alongside journalists James Smart and Cyrus Ombati, for allegedly publishing and broadcasting defamatory words against him. But Miguna failed to prove that defamatory statements were made against him in reports that he was questioned by police after his house help claimed he had assaulted and kicked her out of his Runda home.

Miguna moved to  court seeking general damages to the tune of Sh10 million, special, exemplary, and aggravated damages plus the cost of the suit, pre-judgement and post-judgement interest at court rates. He further asked for an unequivocal retraction and an apology “acceptable to him in such conspicuous manner as the offending publications” and in terms approved by himself.

But after failing to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt, Lady Justice Aburili ruled that, “The plaintiff did not prove his case against the defendants, jointly and severally on balance of probabilities. I hereby dismiss the suit as filed against all the defendants and award him nothing.”

In the ruling, the court found that there “was no evidence that the said publications and broadcast viewed Miguna positively before or that thereafter; as a result, there was no proof before the court that the plaintiff was shunned, avoided, disparaged, insulted, ridiculed” or that Miguna had suffered any form of dent, stigma, loss of business, clients or job opportunity due to the publication or broadcast. The court noted that there was necessity for independent evidence to show that indeed there are those who believe that the plaintiff was defamed by the publication and live broadcast.

“In this case, the plaintiff failed to satisfy the court that his good character and reputation or profession was put to doubt by the publication or broadcast,” the judge said in her ruling. “I say so because it is not unusual in some rare cases to find a plaintiff who can be libel proof, meaning he or she has a reputation so tarnished that it couldn’t be brought any lower, even by the publication of false statements of fact and concerning him or her. It was therefore important that the plaintiff in this case show that he was not that ‘libel proof’ person. That he has a good reputation to protect,” ruled the judge.

Despite the fact that Miguna is a practicing advocate of the High Court of Kenya, the ruling poured cold water on his  decision to represent himself, since as the Kiswahili saying goes, mganga hajigangi.