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1. Courts shall bear in mind that the dissemination of information damaging the dignity and honor of a citizen or organization means publishing this information in the press, radio- or TV-broadcasting, or publishing it with the use of other mass media entities, stating in official, party or other references, public speeches and announcements addressed to various organizations and public officers, or, giving this information in other forms, including the oral one, to some people or at least to one person. Giving this information to a person, whom it concerns, shall not be admitted its dissemination. Information damaging the dignity and honor of a person or organization shall include information which does not correspond to the facts and diminishes the dignity and honor of a citizen or organization in public opinion or opinion of some people regarding the observance of laws and social moral principles (for instance, information on dishonest behavior, mean action in a labor staff, family, or, information damaging economic activity of an organization or reputation, etc.). At the same time, the demands of refutation of the true information which contains the critique of work defects or mean behavior in public or at the place of work can not be substantiated. 2. Honor - is the social evaluation of a person, a measure of his/her spiritual and social qualities (objective evaluation of a person). Dignity - is the internal self-appraisal of a person of his/her personal qualities, abilities, world outlook and his social personal value (subjective evaluation). Business reputation of a person and legal entity - steady positive evaluation of their (work and professional) merits by the public opinion. … 4. According to Article 3 of Civil Procedure Code, an interested person shall have the right to appeal to a court to defend his honor and dignity in case if there is no names of certain people in publication but it is obvious who is mentioned in it, or, if the false information concerns the dead member of his family or close relative who may be a legal heir. … 7. If a suit contains the demand for refutation of information disseminated by the press or broadcasted by a radio or TV, there shall be attracted an author and appropriate mass media agency (press and media entity, publisher, etc.) as defendants. According to Part 2 of Article 7 of the Civil Code, a court shall have the right to place responsibilities to those defendants to refute the information which does not correspond to the facts. If such information is published or otherwise disseminated without the author’s name (e.g. in an editorial article), the appropriate mass media entity shall be the defendant in suit. … 9. If the information contested by a plaintiff is reproduced from the official news, meeting speeches or authentic speeches which are broadcasted by or derived from information agencies by a mass media entity (see Article 41 of the Law “On the Press and Media”), according to Article 26 of Civil Procedure Code, a court shall bring an agency or a person who has become a source of such information to responsibility as a defendant together with the mass media entity. In this case, the aforementioned agency or person shall entail responsibility to prove that the disseminated information corresponds to the facts. … 13. A plaintiff shall also have the right to seek for moral compensation for damages inflicted by disseminating the information that damages his(her) honor and dignity. Side by side with the suit for defense of the honor and dignity, a court shall have the right to consider the demand of a citizen or legal entity to compensate for the moral (non-property) harm inflicted by a defendant who disseminates information which does not correspond to the facts that damages his(her) dignity and honor, or causes other non-property losses. |
