On February 1, the Department of Civil Cases of the Senate (Supreme Court), having recognized the judgment of the appellate court as lawful and well-founded, refused to initiate cassation proceedings in the case of violation of honour and dignity of a person. Along with the decision of the Senate, the judgment of the Riga Regional Court of October 31, 2023 comes into force, by which the defendant is obliged to publicly apologize to the plaintiff, thus publishing an apology on his account of the social network platform Facebook, where the defendant had previously insulted the dignity and honour of the plaintiff. Compensation of 150 euros for moral injury was collected from the defendant in favour of the plaintiff.

The claim was based on two posts published on the defendant's account of the social network platform Facebook on January 26, 2021, directed against a journalist of the television channel TV3 – a reporter of the broadcast programme “Bez Tabu". In order to fulfil his professional duty of informing the public, the journalist had arrived to the Baltic Beach Hotel & SPA in Jūrmala city to create a story about an issue of importance to society at a time when strict restrictions were imposed on visiting public places due to the spread of Covid-19, including those public places that provided rehabilitation services; the story aimed to verify whether these restrictions were observed. Following the broadcast of the story, the defendant had expressed his opinion about the plaintiff, purposefully insulting the plaintiff's honour and dignity and causing moral injury to the plaintiff. The plaintiff appealed to the court, requesting the court to impose an obligation on the defendant to publicly apologize to the plaintiff by means of publishing an apology on the account of the social network platform Facebook, and to compensate moral damage in the amount of 150 euros.

Having evaluated the statements and an opinion indicated in the claim statement and contained in the posts published on the defendant's Facebook account, the court recognized them as offensive to the plaintiff's honour and dignity.

Moreover, the court established that the defendant had disseminated an unfounded, disproportionately offensive opinion of the plaintiff on the social network platform Facebook, namely an opinion that might have affected the public perception of the plaintiff as a journalist and person, as well as might have created a negative reflection of public evaluation in the plaintiff's own consciousness.

Senate’s decision. Case No SKC-307/2024 (C30375222)
Judgment of the Riga Regional Court

 

Baiba Kataja, Communication Specialist of the Supreme Court of Latvia

Telephone: +371 67020396; e-mail: baiba.kataja@at.gov.lv