The right to the defense of the honor and goodness
of a name is secured in the Russian Constitution. Legislation outlines
two principle ways the honor and goodness of a name may be violated—slander
and insult.
Slander is understood as the dissemination of information not
corresponding with reality and defaming (disgracing) another person.
Defamation, in particular, is information either about the violations by a person of legislation or moral principles (the perpetration of dishonorable actions, or incorrect professional conduct, mode of life or similar things) or other information, that would belittle the person’s honor, dignity, or professional reputation. Such information is considered slander only in cases when it does not conform with reality.
Slander should damage a specific person. Herewith it is not necessary that the person be called by name in the publication. It is sufficient that the person is able to be unmistakably identified proceeding from the contents (text) of the communication or material.
Legislation does not consider slander the dissemination of dishonorable information that does not correspond with reality if it is therein impossible to assign a concrete identity to whom the said information appertains. In Russia the dissemination of false information that defames groups or categories of persons because of the attributes of race, nationality, and religious attitudes is banned. However, the given offenses are not considered slander and entail changes in correspondence with other articles of the Criminal Code. Also prohibited is the employment of the journalist’s will to disseminate information with the aim of defaming particular categories of citizens exclusively because of the attributes of gender, age, language, profession, place of residence or work, or political beliefs. However, these acts, like in the previous case, are not considered by this legislation slander and are not governed by this charge.
Slander should entail concrete facts, whose conformity or non-conformity with reality may be verified.
Legislation provides an extraordinarily broad set of means of response to slander.
First is the right to a refutation. The right to a refutation is attached to Article 151 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and Article 32 of the Statute “On Mass Media.” Any person has the right to demand from the mass media’s editorial office the refutation of widespread information that does not correspond with reality and damages the person’s honor, dignity, or professional reputation. If the said person is unable to demand the refutation of such information because of any reason, this may be done by his legal representatives. Heirs and other interested persons have the right to demand the refutation of such false information that damages the honor, dignity or professional reputation of an already deceased person.
The demand for a refutation should contain both an indication about the false information of which is demanded a refutation and also an indication of in which mass media and when the given information was published.
Herewith a citizen or a legal person demanding a refutation is not bound to show either a demonstration of the nonconformity of the information impinged on the person’s honor, dignity, or professional reputation.
Claimants have the right to introduce text refutation, which cannot more than doubly exceed the bulk of the refuted fragment of the announcements or materials. Therein, the law adjusts the minimum size of a refutation: one standard page of typewritten text, or for television and radio—the air time necessary for the dictation of one such page.
Editorial offices are given one moth for a decision about granting the request for a published refutation in the publication or to refuse it. In the case that it does not possess of the evidence of the conformity of the disseminated information with reality, the editorial office will be bound to publish a refutation. Concerning its own decision about the refutation, it will be bound to notify in writing the requesting person. The refusal for a refutation should be motivated.
A refutation should follow either in the course of ten days from the moment the editorial office receives the demand for it—if the text of the mass media becomes public (on the air) not rarer than once a week, or in the soonest arranged issue—if the periodical mass media becomes public (on the air) less often than the indicated time.
The editorial office is obligated to publish a refutation in the very same mass media which disseminated the information to be refuted. A refutation in a written publication should be set in the same print in which was written the information to be refuted and inserted under the headline “refutation,” as a rule in the same place as refuted announcements and materials. Refutations by radio and television should be conveyed at the same time of day and, as a rule, in the same program where the refuted information appeared.
In case the text of the refutation is presented, the editorial office has the right to make available to the demanding person the ability to read it himself directly on the air or in recording.
The editorial office should refuse a refutation if the person attempts by means of the refutation to misuse the freedom of mass media, i.e., to clearly employ mass media for the perpetration of criminally punishable acts, for the propaganda of war, for the divulging of information amounting to state or another secrets guarded by law, for the appeal for the capture of power, for the violent alteration of the constitutional order or territorial integrity of the state, or for the firing of ethnic, class, social, or religious intolerance and hatred. In case the editorial office does not fulfill this demand, it may be issued a warning about the impermissability of the abuse of the free mass media.
Also, the editorial office is obliged to refuse both the publication of an anonymous refutation or a refutation contradicting a decision made by a court.
In several cases, the law assigns the question about the refusal of the refutation to the discretion of the editorial office. These cases are when the said information has already been refuted in the given mass media and when the demand for a refutation was delivered after the expiration of one year from the moment of dissemination of the refuted information.
The refusal of a refutation may be appealed to a court in the order of civil proceedings in the course of a year from the day of the dissemination of the refuted information. The right to a hearing in court also arises when, in spite of the lack of a refusal, the editorial office broke the order or the time limit for the publication of the refutation. In case of the expiration of the one-year time limit, for good reasons it may be reinstated by court.
In case of the non-execution of the court’s order to refute information, upon the editorial office may be administered a fine of up to two hundred times the minimal dimension of monthly wages in Russia (up to $2800), recovered for the benefit of the state; this fine does not release responsibility for the publication of the refutation.
The second manner of reaction to slander given is the answer. The right to answer is provided in Article 46 of the Statute “On Mass Media.” Therein the right to answer belongs to the person, in the attitude of whom was disseminated information not corresponding to reality, without dependence from whether this information defamed his honor, dignity or professional reputation. The citizen’s right to answer also arises in the case, when the information impinges his rights and legal interests, and this right is not associated with the defense of the honor and good name.
In such a way, the right to answer is considerably broader than the right to refutation and concerns cases not dealt with in Russian legislation toward slander.
The above described rules about the order of the refutation apply to the right to answer.
The right to refutation and the right to answer do not amount to the responsibility of the person, in the attitude of whom the published information is false and defames him, and the unemployment of these rights does not bereave the person of the right to demand to bring to responsibility the guilty side.
Russian legislation regulates questions of slander charges at length. To this offense may be assigned both civil and criminal charges. The selection of which type with which to charge the perpetrator in the majority of cases is assigned to the person, the rights of whom were infringed upon. Criminal matters about slander relate to a small category, which in correspondence with criminal-procedure legislation relates to the cases of the private prosecution and are initiated only through the complaint of the victim directly by court (judge). The plaintiff has the right to cease criminal prosecution at any stage of the case, with the exception, when in view of particular societal consequences of the case or the incapacitated condition of the plaintiff, in the absence of the plaintiff’s complaint, this action may be initiated by the prosecutor.
Legislation considers criminal and civil charges of slander as absolutely independent and sovereign from each other and does not eliminate the chance of the simultaneous assignment to it of both criminal and civil charges.
However, the conditions of the advent of criminal or civil responsibility are differentiated.
The criminal charge of slander in mass media is provided for in Article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (or, Article 129 of the new Criminal Code to take effect on January 1, 1997). In the said article, slander is understood as the blazing dissemination of false information which defames another person.
Disseminated information should wittingly for the person who disseminates it be not in conformity with reality. In case a person in good faith is mistaken about the correspondence of information with reality and disseminates false information, while considering it real, he may not be charged under the said article. Therein it is necessary to keep in mind that, in distinction from other citizens, the responsibility to verify the authenticity of information communicated by him is assigned on the journalist by law, and therefore, the notion of good faith will be related to him in a different from other cases manner.
The responsibility to substantiate the non-conformity of information with reality, its defaming character, and the non-conscientiousness of the journalist who disseminates it, is assigned to the person who submitted grievance. Through the force of Article 49 of the Constitution, a journalists charged with slander is not responsible for the demonstration of his own innocence.
The criminal charge of slander in the mass media may be brought against the journalist, or person of the same legal status. Herein the editorial office of the mass media which published the reported slandering information may be charged by the board that registered the publication (Russian Press Committee or its territorial office) with administrative responsibility for the abuse of the free mass media by way of issuing it a warning.
As has already been said, the person in the attitude of whom was disseminated false information which impinges his honor, dignity or professional reputation, may, independent from his initiation of criminal charges, bring into effect of the defense of his rights through of civil proceedings.
In the said case, responsibility may be carried either by the journalists or by the editorial offices of the mass media which disseminated the information. In case that the material was published without indication of the name of the author, charges may be brought only against the editorial office, and in this case, if the editorial office is not a juridical person (as permits the Statute “On Mass Media”), charges are brought against the founder of the mass media. Therein their circumstances will be less advantageous than in the case with the criminal prosecution.
In accordance with Article 151 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and Article 43 of the law “On Mass Media,” the responsibility of the substantiation of the correspondence of the information with reality lies with the defendant (the journalist and the editorial office) irrespective of whether there was declared claim either about the defense of honor and dignity or only about the responsibility of the editorial office to publish a refutation. The plaintiff is obligated to demonstrate himself just the fact of the dissemination of the information.
Concerning claims for the defense of honor, dignity or professional reputation, a statute of limitations is not established, and they may be declared at any time after publication date.
The person, in the attitude of whom false information which defames him was disseminated, has the right to both demand compensation for the caused damages the publication inflicted under the declared civil claim for the defense of honor, dignity and professional reputation, and also in this case bring criminal charges of slander against the person.
Detailing the redress of damages from the publication, the person is in the right to demand compensation for the publication’s caused moral damage, under which is understood physical or mental agonies or experiences, aroused from the dissemination of false information which defamed the honor, dignity, or professional reputation of a person, as well as the consequences of such dissemination, such as physical agonies (for example, sickness).
The demand for compensation for moral damages may be stated together with the demand for a refutation and the demand for the defense of the honor, dignity and professional reputation, or be independent from them. The declaration of the demand for compensation for moral damages is also acceptable in the criminal process.
The person declaring the demand for compensation for moral damages is obligated to prove both that the causes of physical and mental agonies result from the dissemination of false information through mass media, and the character of the agonies and their extent.
The defendant is not obligated to substantiate the amount of the compensation. The final determination of this amount is assigned to the court, which is obligated herein to consult the character and contents of the publication, the extent of the dissemination of defaming information, the extent of guilt of the editorial office and the journalist, and the character and depth of mental and physical agonies suffered. The extent of the mental and physical agonies is appraised by the court not only proceeding from factual circumstances and their causes, but also from the individual character of the plaintiff.
For demands for compensation for moral damages, the plaintiff’s time limitation for action is not established.
In spite of the fact that the compensation for moral damage is produced in the monetary form, moral damage in Russian legislation is considered a category of non-property damages and demands for its compensation are subject to pay state duties, adjusted in a set sum, but not from the amount of damages, like in the case of redress caused by damages a s a result of slander. In the present time the extent of the state duties amounts to 10 percent of the minimal dimension of monthly wages (about $1.50).
In accordance with Article 57 of the Statue “On Mass Media,” and editor, the editor-in-chief, and journalist do not carry responsibility for the dissemination of information not in accordance with reality tat damages the honor, dignity or professional reputation of a person in the case where they comply with compulsory communication (court decisions, messages of the founder), but also in the cases where such information is drawn from information agencies and is contained in an answer to a request for information, or from materials from the press offices of government organs, establishments, organizations, or organs of public associations, from the author’s personal works going on air without a script, or from text not subject to editing in accordance with the law. The editorial office and the journalist have no responsibility also when the degrading information is reported literally as a reproduction of fragments of speeches of official persons from government organs, organizations, or public associations, or as literal reproductions of communications and materials determined to have been disseminated earlier through another mass media.
However, the presence of the indicated situations does not eliminate the plaintiff’s claim for the refutation of information or the compensation of moral damages.
The second manner of the offense of the honor and dignity of a person is insult. Under insult is understood the intentional abasement of honor and dignity, expressed in indecent form. Indecent form can be expressed, in particular, through the employment for the negative evaluation of a personality obscene abuse or comparisons of a man with some other sort of odious personality. The conformity of this information or the character of the man with reality is not required for the advent of an insult charge.
Insult should be conditioned with personal odious sentiments directed toward the insulted person.
Besides the insult of a person, legislation specifically highlights the insult of the judge, of a public assessor or jury representative concerning their activity toward the fulfilment of justice, and of the feelings and honor of citizens concerning their religious beliefs.
Akeksei Voinov, translated by Chris Swader, American University