Court dismisses Dubinsky's lawsuit against the CHESNO Movement
The Podil District Court of Kyiv city dismissed the lawsuit by deputy Oleksandr Dubinsky, who tried to sue the public organization "CHESNO Movement" for defamation.
The court issued the ruling on October 11, 2023, reports the Movement.
The leader of the CHESNO Movement, Vita Dumanska, said that Dubinsky had demanded that he be removed from the Traitors List.
"He mentioned several CHESNO materials in his lawsuit: namely, an artice about the special elections project 'Media Defense' with the commissioned reports on the tsn.ua website and another one about Dubinsky whitewashing his image. The court decided to leave this lawsuit unsatisfied, because our materials assess Dubinsky's activities as a public figure. The List team strictly adheres to the methods they developed and only uses information from verified sources," Dumanska stressed.
Lawyer Yuriy Melnyk, who represented the CHESNO Movement in court, noted that during the trial, the court sided with the Movement, taking into account Dubinsky's status as a public figure and the content of the contested articles.
"The court sided with the CHESNO Movement and agreed that the information released by the organization was an expression of a fact-based subjective opinion. On these grounds, the court decided to reject the demands of O. A. Dubinsky, since the disputed statement could not be interpreted as containing factual information, which makes it impossible to declare it false. The current legislation does allow prosecuting people for expressing value judgments", commented Yuriy Melnyk.
The court's ruling stated that, given the need for public control over the activities of state bodies and officials, the published information about state officials and public figures is socially important and the restrictions on the dissemination of this information, as well as the limits of appropriate criticism and behavior assessments, are broader than in the case of average citizens.
The court noted that a public figure, a civil servant should be ready for instense criticism, harshly worded in particular, and the society's close attention to and interest in their work and/or personal life, because they agreed to such attention by choosing the career of a public figure.
The decision of the Podil District Court has not yet entered into force, as it can be appealed.
As the CHENSO Movement reminds us, Dubinsky was included in the Traitors List for consistently spreading Russian propaganda about Ukraine being ruled from outside, biolabs, and calling the slogan "Glory to Ukraine" a Nazi salute. In addition, he was involved in multiple anti-corruption investigations.
As IMI reported, in March 2023 the CHESNO Movement reported that Oleksandr Dubinsky was whitewashing his reputation. For instance, starting October 11, 2022, the TV channel "1+1" (owned by oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky) aired 11 TSN reports about Dubinsky's charity donations.
On January 11, 2021, the US Treasury Department introduced sanctions against Oleksandr Dubinsky and several other Ukrainian citizens and media outlets for interfering in the US elections. The U.S. Treasury explained that these individuals and companies were part of a Russian network of external influence affiliated with deputy Andriy Derkach. Washington considers the latter to be a Russian agent. Sanctions against Derkach were introduced back in 2020.
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