Reputation lawsuits: a retired judge talks about the complexity of cases on protection of honor and dignity

Cases of protection of honor, dignity and business reputation are very complex, so a separate court and specialized judges who really understand such issues are needed for a quality consideration of such claims. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by Oleksandr Sytnikov, Director of the Center for Accessible Justice, retired judge of the Supreme Administrative Court.

This category of cases is difficult. It is difficult from the point of view of evidence..., for judges it is a problem - how to evaluate value judgments. In order to protect your honor and dignity, you need to have a specialty in this area. We have very few lawyers who do this and who really understand these issues,

According to him, there are many cases of a reputational nature in administrative proceedings, although they are considered complex.

I would also say that not all judges have the level to consider such cases. In such cases, if we had an intellectual property court, I would refer it to them. They (cases on protection of honor, dignity and business reputation - ed.) are very closely related to intellectual property. I would separate this specialization to gather judges who really understand these issues,

Context

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.

The court will consider Polishchuk's lawsuit against the ARMA on October 10.

Add

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 spread by the then-incumbent MP Pavlo Rizanenko in his blogs, 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.