“Whitewashing a name from slander": a lawyer talks about the problems of protecting honor and dignity in Ukraine

Cases on protection of honor, dignity and business reputation constantly attract public attention, as filing such complaints is often the only way to “whitewash your name” from slander by those in power. However, despite the constitutional guarantees, the judicial system often fails to provide effective protection of such rights, and the process of their consideration can drag on for years. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by the managing partner of GRACERS, attorney-at-law Serhii Lysenko.

Currently, our national legislation, unfortunately, does not contain a clear and specific definition of such concepts as dignity, honor or business reputation, as they are general moral and ethical categories. At the same time, they are referred to as personal non-property rights, which are recognized by law as independent objects of judicial protection

He added that the Constitution provides that a person, his or her life and health, honor and dignity, inviolability and security are the highest social values in Ukraine, but the judicial system does not have such a “strong” position in defending them. 

The lawyer also drew attention to the fact that the courts examine and evaluate the evidence base in different ways. 

Ukrainian courts consider more than a thousand such cases every year. However, it is worth noting that not all judges have the appropriate level of expertise to consider cases of this category... Therefore, there is a critical need for judges to learn to really distinguish between their own value judgments (subjective judgments, assessment of actions, criticism or other statements that do not contain factual data) and factual statements (information about events, things or phenomena that can be verified) 

The length of time it takes to review such cases also remains a problem, Lysenko said. While it usually takes up to 6 months, the process can be delayed due to judges' vacations or heavy workloads in the courts.

Add

Viktor Polishchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and owner of the Gulliver shopping and entertainment and business center in Kyiv, filed a lawsuit against the ARMA to protect his honor, dignity and business reputation with the Shevchenkivskyi District Court. In a commentary to UNN, the businessman explainedthat he was forced to go to court because of Elena Duma's statement that he and his wife had “close relations with the Kremlin elite.” Polishchuk emphasized that this information was fictitious and untrue.

In response to a request from UNN , ARMA head Olena Duma explainedthat she accused Polishchuk and his wife of having ties to the “Kremlin elite” because she saw such information in the media.

Court to consider Polishchuk's lawsuit against ARMA on October 10. 

Recall

Having researched the topic, we found out that the information that Viktor Polishchuk's wife Lilia Rizva is allegedly the niece of the wife of Russian politician Dmitry Medvedev appeared in 2015-2016. It was disseminated by the current MP Pavlo Rizanenko in his blogs at the time, but he never provided evidence of this information.

UNN asked Rizanenko to provide documents that would confirm his assumptions, but he refused to comment, citing the fact that he has not been a public figure since 2019.