The Higher Court in Podgorica confirmed the verdict of the Basic Court in Ulcinj, so that the claim of the plaintiff "Bemax" DOO, which requested that the defendant Dritan Abazović be obliged to pay the amount of 21.000 euros as compensation for non-pecuniary damage due to violations of the plaintiff's personal rights, as a legal entity, has now been finally rejected, the Public Relations Service of the Basic Court in Ulcinj said in a statement.
It is emphasized that the Higher Court stated in its decision "that no significant violations of the provisions of civil procedure were committed in the first instance proceedings, because the judgment of the Basic Court in Ulcinj contains reasons on decisive facts, which reasons are clear, and are not contradictory to each other, nor in contradiction with the presented evidence".
"In this regard, the High Court states that the correct conclusion of the first instance court was that the defendant, although he placed the plaintiff in the same category as criminal clans when making the statement, did not explicitly state that the plaintiff was involved in crime, because the context of the statement was about who could benefit from the removal of the current Government. The defendant on this specific occasion did not speak in isolation about the plaintiff, nor was the topic of the speech the prosecutor, but rather about the negotiations for the formation of a new Government. It was a political speech about the distribution of power and the interests of political parties, whether the Government is formed for the interests of the state or the interests of certain structures, in which context not only the plaintiff was mentioned, but also some individuals and political parties. Therefore, contrary to the unfounded allegations in the appeal, the defendant's disputed address to the media did have a political context, and it was political speech, as the first instance court correctly found, which speech enjoys the highest degree of protection under Article 10 of the Convention," the statement reads.
It is added that the High Court pointed out that in political speech, especially when it comes from elected officials, a high degree of freedom is allowed in assessing political interests and power relations.
"According to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, politicians are allowed to make broad political assessments and point to presumed interests, alliances and power backgrounds, even when this involves negative qualifications, as long as they do not make factual accusations of crime and do not speak of a criminal act. Value judgments about political interests do not require proof of facts, because they are based on political conviction. Otherwise, if a factual basis were sought for every statement made in a political context, political debate would become impossible," the statement reads.
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