ABSTRACT
This question must be approached in two stages. In a trial with judge and jury, the judge’s function is to decide whether the words are capable of being defamatory. If he answers this question in the affirmative, it is then for the jury to decide whether they are defamatory in the circumstances of the particular case. Where trial is by judge alone – as is almost invariably the case in Commonwealth Caribbean jurisdictions – the judge must perform both functions.49
