The court of first instance ordered a Law and Justice MEP, Joachim Brudziński, to apologise to the Open Dialogue Foundation, its President Lyudmyla Kozlowska and Bartosz Kramek for a Twitter post published four years ago. Brudziński is also obliged to pay PLN 30,000 in damages.
Joachim Brudziński has been sued for his Twitter post as of 22 April 22 2019. “Hi, defenders
of the ‘Euro-Kazakh’ crooks famous for ‘shutting down the government’. Do you know that
you are поле́зный идиот [i.e. useful idiots]? Do you realise that December’s miraculous
resurrection of Mr. D. and the Rossmann candles were funded with laundered money? I don’t
think that Lusia and her and her tolerant husband are likely to get the Nobel Prize,” twitted
Mr Brudziński.
The Open Dialogue Foundation, as well as its President, Lyudmyla Kozlovska and Bartosz
Kramek, her husband, sued the politician for violation of their personal rights. On Wednesday, the court of first instance ordered Brudziński to publish an apology for 60 days on his Twitter profile and to pay the plaintiffs a total of PLN 30,000 in damages and to cover the costs of the lawsuit (including those incurred by the plaintiffs).
In the substantiation of the judgment, the court emphasised that, contrary to the position
expressed by Mr Brudziński’s attorney, there was no doubt that the politician’s tweet referred to the Open Dialogue Foundation, Kozlovska and Kramek (which was also implied by the comments following the tweet), and the violation of personal rights occurred by the unfounded accusation of money laundering. According to the court, neither the Moldovan parliament’s report, nor the Sunday Times article, justify making such allegations, and the Law and Justice MEP’s tweet was written in very colloquial language, in a clearly offensive manner.
The judgment is not yet final, so the parties may appeal against it with the second instance
court. Joachim Brudziński’s twitter profile currently has slightly more than 125,000 followers.
