Courts of Kyiv rejected two appeals of the former mayor of the capital against journalists.
“Dzerkalo Tyzhnia”” alt=”Courts of the appellate instance rejected Leonid Chernovetsky's lawsuits against “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia” publication” />
By the decision of the Kyiv Court of Appeal on February 14, 2023, as part of the panel of judges: G.V. Kryzhanivska, J.S. Melnyk, V.A. Shebuyeva. the appeal of Leonid Mykhailovych of Chernovetsky was dismissed. The decision of the Sviatoshynsky district court of the city of Kyiv from December 16, 2022 was left unchanged.
From Leonid Chernovetskyi, 7,000 hryvnias of legal aid expenses incurred in connection with the appellate review of the case were collected in favor of the journalist.
>
Also, by the decision of the Kyiv Court of Appeal on March 8, 2023, as part of the panel of judges: S.A. Holub, T.O. Pysanoi, D.O. Targonii. the appeal of Leonid Mykhailovych of Chernovetsky was dismissed. The decision of the Pechersk District Court of the city of Kyiv of September 7, 2022 was left unchanged.
From Leonid Chernovetskyi, 6,500 hryvnias of legal aid expenses incurred in connection with the appellate review of the case were collected in favor of the journalist.
>
Thus, the appellate courts recognized two lawsuits by Leonid Chernovetskyi as groundless.moral suffering Leonid Chernovetsky estimated at two million hryvnias (each claim is 1 million).
In the first lawsuit the news from the text < strong>“Will Zelensky choose the capital?” of the editor of the politics department Inna Vedernikova. The plaintiff challenged the following judgment of the author: “But here it is important to recall that the main argument that allowed Yanukovych to legitimize his decision in the eyes of the citizens was the anti-corruption campaign of the security forces and Popov's team, which began actively exposing Chernovetskyi's actions. The Constitution is nothing, justice is everything. The authorities demonstratively returned the assets stolen by Chernovetsky to the municipal property of the city. What she did with them later is not the subject of this article. However, it is definitely a reason to be afraid for Klitschko,” adds Vedernikova”. or a wallet?” of the following content: “Alla Shlapak is the ex-co-chair of the Leonid Chernovetskyi Bloc faction (paired with Denys Komarnytskyi), the keeper of Chernovetskyi's “nets” and is not an accidental person in Tymoshenko's team.”
Rejecting the lawsuit the courts noted: “Everyone is guaranteed the right to freedom of thought and speech, to the free expression of their views and beliefs. Everyone has the right to freely collect, store, use and disseminate information orally, in writing or in any other way – of his choice. The exercise of these rights may be limited by law in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public order in order to prevent riots or crimes, to protect public health, to protect the reputation or rights of other people, to prevent the disclosure of Information received in confidence, or to maintain authority and impartiality of justice (Article 34 of the Constitution of Ukraine).
According to Part 1 of Art. 10 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right includes the freedom to hold one's views, receive and impart information and ideas without interference from state authorities and regardless of borders.
Therefore, taking into account the conclusion of the European Court of Human Rights, the actual statements and evaluative judgments are different concepts, and the distinction between these terms is at the heart of the protection of the right to honor and dignity as personal non-property rights.
At the same time, the limit of permissible criticism of a political figure or other public figure is much wider than that of an individual average person. Public figures are inevitably exposed to meticulous coverage of their words and actions and should be aware of this.
Our publication closely followed the events taking place in the capital during the term of the plaintiff and was the first to publish information about the scale of the violations.< /strong>
The editors continue to defend in court the rights of their journalists to freely express the opinions of the authors in their own materials, and we especially thank the NGO “Human Rights Platform” for the legal support of these cases.
Related video
Representative “Mirror of the Week” lawyer Roman Vasylniak (lawyer of the NGO “Human Rights Platform”) noted: “Along with information or data that is subject to verification, Article 10 of the Convention protects views, critical remarks or assumptions, the veracity of which cannot be verified for veracity. Evaluative judgments are also protected – this is a prerequisite for pluralism of views. Current legislation does not provide for the possibility of prosecution for expressing evaluative judgments. They, like opinions, beliefs, judgments, critical assessment of certain facts and shortcomings, cannot be the subject of judicial protection, since being the expression of subjective opinion and views, they cannot be checked for their correspondence to reality (as opposed to checking the truth of facts). and public figures should be tolerant of harsh, even incorrect criticism.”
