EL-AZZI v Nationwide News Pty Ltd

The case of El-Azazi v Nationwide News Pty Ltd was before the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The plaintiff, El-Azazi, sought damages for defamation against the defendant, Nationwide News Pty Ltd, which published articles in The Daily Telegraph alleging that El-Azazi was involved in the financing of terrorism. The plaintiff applied for the court to direct a separate trial of the issue of "libel / no libel" in the context of a pre-section 7A defamation action.

The central legal issue was whether the court should order a separate trial to determine the question of whether the articles published by Nationwide News were defamatory of El-Azazi. This issue arose from the plaintiff's argument that the defamatory nature of the articles should be decided by a jury, separate from the question of whether the articles had actually caused harm to El-Azazi's reputation. The court needed to consider the implications of section 7A of the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) in relation to the plaintiff's application.

The court held that, in a pre-section 7A defamation action, the court must direct a separate trial of the issue of whether the words complained of were defamatory of the plaintiff. The court emphasised that this approach was consistent with the common law position and was not altered by the statutory provisions. The court found that the statutory provisions were intended to address the question of harm to reputation, not the issue of whether the words were defamatory. Therefore, the court granted the plaintiff's application for a separate trial on the issue of whether the articles were defamatory of El-Azazi.

The court ordered that the separate trial on the issue of "libel / no libel" would be conducted before the trial of the question of harm to reputation. This decision ensured that the jury would first determine the defamatory nature of the articles, and then, if applicable, assess whether those articles caused harm to El-Azazi's reputation.