Mr Joachim Brudziński, the Chief of the Law and Justice’s election campaign, lost a personal rights case against the Open Dialogue Foundation before the first instance court on Wednesday. He was held responsible for his tweet on the “Euro-Kazakh crooks”. Pursuant to the court’s ruling, the politician has been obliged to publish an apology note
on Twitter for 60 days and pay PLN 30 thousand in compensation for the benefit of ODF, its President Lyudmyla Kozlovska and Bartosz Kramek.
The case concerned a Twitter post from 22 April 2019, in which Joachim Brudzinski wrote about “Euro-Kazakh crooks”, “miraculous resurrection of Mr D.” and money laundering. He concluded his tweet by stating that: “Lusia and her tolerant husband are unlikely to get a Nobel Prize”.
An unquestionable violation of personal rights
As Martin Mycielski, Head of Communications at ODF, said in his interview with “Presserwis”, contrary to the defendant’s opinion, the court had no slightest doubt to whom Mr Brudziński’s comment referred. Moreover, the court also found that there had been an unquestionable infringement of personal rights, particularly in the context of an unauthorised and serious allegations concerning money laundering by the Foundation. In the substantiation of its ruling, the court stated that there was “no doubt as to the negative character of the defendant’s statement (i.e. tweet)”.
Numerous comments from internet users also left no doubt. Ultimately, the court’s decision was also affected by comments made by Twitter users, quoted by Adrian Salus, Mr Brudziński’s lawyer: “What the hell he is writing about?“, “It is hard to understand so please translate it into Polish“, “Will someone please explain me what Brudzinski is writing about, because I totally don’t understand?“, “But what is the point?“, “I wish I could understand the Minister’s gibberish “, although, according to Mr Salus, these comments were intended to convince the court that the tweet could not be understood unequivocally.
“I have no doubts that Joachim Brudziński is going to appeal against this judgment,” said Bartosz Kramek to “Presserwis”. “In my view, if financial penalties in such cases were more acute, many people would think twice before they post a comment on social media. That would be much more educational.”
Source: press.pl
