Court satisfies part of Khmelnytsky City Council official's lawsuit against Vsim.ua

In late May, the Khmelnytsky District Court satisfied part of the lawsuit filed by the Khmelnytsky Deputy Mayor Vasyl Novachok against the local media outlet Vsim.ua. The court ruled that the information in the outlet's article was unreliable and violated the plaintiff's non-property rights to respect for honor, dignity and inviolability of business reputation. The court also ordered the publication to delete the article and retract the information reported in it in the same way in which it was distributed, and to formally apologize. The media outlet must also pay the plaintiff 5 thousand hryvnias in moral damages.

The chief editor, Maksym Faryna, reported this to the IMI representative in Khmelnytsky oblast, Alyona Bereza.

The judgement was passed on May 28; the court read aloud the introduction and concluding part of the ruling. The court wrote the full text of the decision on June 7 and released it to the public at the end of the business day on June 10.

Khmelnytsky City Council official Vasyl Novachok sued the local media outlet Vsim.ua for the article published in July 2023, titled "Novachok and a million hryvnias: the details of the budget embezzlement case", in which a team of four journalists reported that a case had been opened against some Khmelnytsky City ​​Council officials.

In the article, the journalists also mentioned that the opening of the case was reported by another media outlet – the Independent Public Portal. In their material, the latter only listed the positions of the officials ivolved in the conspiracy, according to the investigation, but not their first or last names. At the same time, the outlet sued by the deputy mayor investigated the available information further, listed the names and surnames of the officials and of the deputy mayor, adding their photos.

According to chief editor Maksym Faryna, when their journalists took a comment from the official, they realized that his words about going to court applied to them, but they could not imagine that it would apply only to them, since they were not the only ones who reported on this case: there had been other media, online news outlets, newspapers, television.

IMI lawyer Roman Holovenko points out that the article is not fully balanced.

"The article is not completely balanced: Mr. Novachok's comment is included, but the perspective of the representatives of the two featured companies is not (and if they refused to comment, then it should have been noted). But here it is more a question of professional journalism standards, while in lawsuits the plaintiff focuses on the accuracy aspect of the article," says Roman Holovenko, a lawyer at the Institute of Mass Information.

At the same time, chief editor Maksym Faryna says that despite losing the first instance trial, he is sure that they did everything right, observing all standards. He sees no particular changes to their work. He added that in the future the editors will pay more attention to such materials.

It is clear from the ruling that the court satisfied almost all of the plaintiff's claims, except for one: the plaintiff asked for 500 thousand hryvnias, and the court settled on 5 thousand hryvnias.

"In view of all that has been said, taking into account the content of the article, the nature of the information reported by the defendant, which renders the latter's presumption of innocence null and void, the plaintiff's mental state caused by the defendant's actions, the court concludes that the presented demands may be satisfied, as well as the claim for moral redress in an amount that is sufficient and warranted – UAH 5,000. The very fact of satisfying the listed claims is an element of granting the plaintiff satisfaction and of compensation for the psycho-emotional distress," the Khmelnytsky City District Court's judgement reads.

The IMI lawyer Roman Holovenko believes that declaring the entire contested article by the media outlet as unreliable seems unreasonable, because the article almost always contains some factual statements that are not disputed by the parties to the case:

"The court should have noted exactly what information in the article it considers to be unreliable. And significantly reducing the amount of moral damages from the demanded sum (in this case – by 100 times) is a fairly typical case for the judicial practice in Ukraine," says Roman Holovenko.

Vasyl Novachok announced the court's judgement in a Facebook post the very next day in the evening. The official wrote that "the court ordered the Media Holding 'Vsim' to retract the information and apologize!"

"Perhaps everyone remembers that last July I was unjustly accused of crimes I did not commit. Then these fake news gained a lot of traction. As I promised, I filed a defamation claim with the court. Because I was completely sure I was in the right!" the official notes.

The media outlet disagrees with the judgement and is preparing an appeal. Maksym Faryna informed us about this:

"We will certainly be appealing. The appeal is already in the works and will be filed in the coming days." The chief editor believes the lawsuit had to do with the officials had some personal issues with their media outlet. According to him, this was suggested in the fact that their journalists have difficulties taking comments directly from this official and his subordinates.

An appeal may be filed within thirty days from the day the first instance court announces the judgement.