Blogger NEXTA to pay 3000 rubles for a posting on head of Slonim

The court ruled to award to claimant 3000 rubles (Khomich asked for 10 000 rubles) as a com­pen­sa­tion for moral dam­age and oblig­ed Stsi­a­pan Put­si­la to pub­lish the court deci­sion in his Telegram chan­nel.

Put­si­la is also to pay the legal costs of 370 rubles.

Ear­li­er Khomich claimed he would trans­fer the mon­ey to Slonim hos­pi­tal for ren­o­va­tion works in one of its units.

Nei­ther the claimant, nor the respon­dent attend­ed the hear­ing. Khomich’s inter­ests were rep­re­sent­ed by two lawyers: Maria Kole­sa­va-Hudzili­na and Art­siom Kalosha.

Accord­ing to Kole­sa­va-Hudzili­na, Nex­ta’s Telegram chan­nel was the pri­ma­ry source of infor­ma­tion about Khomich, so «it has greater respon­si­bil­i­ty».

«In his inter­views the chan­nel own­er repeat­ed­ly claimed he had the proofs of the pub­lished infor­ma­tion, but he failed to present such doc­u­ments. <.…> We believe that there can’t be any doc­u­ments,» — said the lawyer.

Accord­ing to Hudzili­na, the fact that Khomich is a state ser­vant or a pub­lic offi­cer, does not dis­tin­guish him from oth­er cit­i­zens of Belarus.

«He has the same rights as every­one else, and we believe that he is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the State, among oth­er things. With his actions Stsi­a­pan Put­si­la also insult­ed the Repub­lic of Belarus, via my client,» — the lawyer said.

August 10 Nex­ta Telegrams chan­nel pub­lished infor­ma­tion about Khomich’s arrest. Alleged­ly, the offi­cial and his wife were caught drunk by the traf­fic police. Hrod­na region traf­fic police depart­ment says they have no infor­ma­tion about Khomich’s deten­tion. Khomich strong­ly rejects that has ever hap­pened.

Accord­ing to his claim, Nex­ta’s post­ing about his arrest was seen by more than 200 thou­sand peo­ple. Oth­er media referred to this infor­ma­tion, too.

Khomich filed sim­i­lar law­suits against the own­ers of inde­pen­dent Belarus­Par­ti­san, 21.by and Vech­erni Bobruisk, which reprint­ed Nex­ta’s post­ing.

Savet­s­ki dis­trict court of Min­sk start­ed the hear­ings of his claim against the own­er of Belarus­Par­ti­san web­site Svi­at­lana Kalink­i­na on Octo­ber 8. How­ev­er, on Octo­ber 30 the judge sus­pend­ed the tri­al until Novem­ber 18.

Accord­ing to Maria Kole­sa­va-Hudzili­na, Mask­ous­ki dis­trict court approved a set­tle­ment agree­ment between Khomich and 21.by, which agreed to pay a com­pen­sa­tion of 1,500 rubles and had already pub­lished a retrac­tion.

As for Vech­erni Bobruisk, the next hear­ing is sched­uled for Novem­ber 13, with the claimed amount of com­pen­sa­tion of 7000 rubles.

Accord­ing to the lawyer, Khomich «still has the right to present claims to the rest of the media, which spread false infor­ma­tion.»

Since 2014, sev­en law­suits against the media were sup­port­ed by courts, accord­ing to BAJ. The amount of com­pen­sa­tion paid by media oulets ranged from 49 to 378 US dol­lars. The aver­age amount was $ 213. Accord­ing to BAJ, in most cas­es, the courts do not uphold the moral com­pen­sa­tion claims.