Are we living in a post truth society? The foundations were laid by Tony Blair and Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction“ and Nick Clegg’s “no tuition fees”. The current masters of the dark art are Vladimir Putin, “There are no Russian troops in Ukraine” and Donald Trump who declared Barak Obama “the founder” of Islamic state. Machiavelli understood this and stated, “those princes who do great things have considered keeping their word of little account, and have known how to beguile men’s minds by shrewdness and cunning”. In civil litigation one would expect great emphasis should be put on the truth. The Civil Procedure Rules require statements of truth on many documents for two reasons. First to ensure that the statement is made with an honest belief as to the accuracy of the content of the statement and second that it may be relied on in evidence. However in the post truth age the UK Supreme Court appears to now recognise that truth is not sacrosanct. In the Versloot Dredging BV case collateral lies were held not to be fatal to the claimant’s case [2016] UKSC 45 and in Patel v Mirza [2016] UKSC 42 involvement in illegality was held not to be a bar to a claim.
Are we living in a post truth society? The foundations were laid by Tony Blair and Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction“ and Nick Clegg’s “no tuition fees”. The current masters of the dark art are Vladimir Putin, “There are no Russian troops in Ukraine” and Donald Trump who declared Barak Obama “the founder” of Islamic state. Machiavelli understood this and stated, “those princes who do great things have considered keeping their word of little account, and have known how to beguile men’s minds by shrewdness and cunning”. In civil litigation one would expect great emphasis should be put on the truth. The Civil Procedure Rules require statements of truth on many documents for two reasons. First to ensure that the statement is made with an honest belief as to the accuracy of the content of the statement and second that it may be relied on in evidence. However in the post truth age the UK Supreme Court appears to now recognise that truth is not sacrosanct. In the Versloot Dredging BV case collateral lies were held not to be fatal to the claimant’s case [2016] UKSC 45 and in Patel v Mirza [2016] UKSC 42 involvement in illegality was held not to be a bar to a claim.
