SLAPP lawsuits and bullying of KRIK

Author: Veran Matić

In addition to these, KRIK has more than 15 current cases defined as SLAPP lawsuits. For articles for which they received professional awards and recognition. 

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Preparatory hearings for lawsuits for compensation of damages are, for the most part, formal, boring, they are rarely attended by journalists, even by the litigants, as was the case today. I decided to follow this case, along with my colleague Marija Babić from Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia IJAS, because there is a frontal attack on the KRIK editorial office, the second lawsuit of the former director of the company Railway Infrastructure Jelena Tanasković, who is under house arrest, under charges related to the demolition of the canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad, which killed 16 citizens.

I found it interesting that this claim for damages was related to the report on the first claim. For journalistic piece of work that represents impeccably written news. Professional and ethically clear. 

I’ve decided to go to this trial precisely because this is a very clear case of a SLAPP lawsuit, one that is intended to intimidate and prevent journalists from continuing to investigate a particular person and event. 

KRIK journalist Bojana Jovanović reported on the second lawsuit filed by Jelena Tanasković, whose legal representatives say in the lawsuit that the journalists “continued to criminalize the plaintiff, using the media “spin” method.” Such a defined act does not exist in our laws. Nor was any kind of spin used. 

In the text of Sofija Parojčić, Jelena Tanasković sued KRIK again, it is written that Tanasković filed a second lawsuit because of the text published by KRIK about her suing them because of the research text entitled Jelena Tanasković – Criminal complaint for which she was not prosecuted, stating that her honor and reputation were injured.

“In a new lawsuit, Tanasković stated that we presented her as ‘a murderer’ as we said in a text that the canopy had killed 15 people. In no part of the text, however, did we say that Tanasković was accused or suspected of murder, but that she was one of the suspects in the case of the roof falling in Novi Sad”.

In addition, she claims in the lawsuit that she is presented as a “criminal who deals with corruption” because, as she explained, KRIK deals with topics in the field of organized crime and corruption. 

“Taking into account the description of the goals and the very name of the publisher of the media ‘KRIK’, i.e. the meaning of the name ‘KRIK’ – crime and corruption, it is clear that the plaintiff is portrayed as a criminal engaged in corruption with this impugned text,” the lawsuit says.

With the new lawsuit, like the previous one, Tanasković is demanding that KRIK pay her a million dinars.

“She does not state anywhere in the lawsuit what is allegedly incorrect in the text, which confirms our position that she files the lawsuits in order to intimidate us and stop us from reporting on her and topics that are important to all citizens,” says Dojčinović. 

“I assume that they will sue us for this text as well and thus continue the series of lawsuits that goes on forever because we have to inform the readers that we are being sued.”

The SLAPP nature of this lawsuit is indicated by the allegation in the lawsuit in which the arguments from the first lawsuit are used as the crown argument in the second lawsuit. 

“In the manner indicated, the defendants claim that the plaintiff, thanks to her acquaintance with the husband of her friend Irene Vujović, caused the application in question to be dismissed and she was illegally exempted from investigation and criminal proceedings…”, the lawsuit states, for the text in which this claim does not exist.

“In the manner indicated, the defendants claim that the plaintiff, thanks to her acquaintance with the husband of her friend Irena Vujović, caused the application in question to be dismissed and she was illegally exempted from investigation and criminal proceedings…”, the lawsuit states, for the text in which this claim does not exist.

However, the story that KRIK actually attacks with its name and definition, as stated in the indictment, is spectatular: “KRIK” – crime and corruption, it is clear that this incriminating text portrays the plaintiff as a criminal engaged in corruption, and that the plaintiff and defendant did not base their characterization on a single piece of evidence, but on the contrary, on a pure “spin” of facts, which have nothing to do with each other.

The same argumentation is being used by the representatives of Appellate Court judge Dušanka Djordjević and her husband. The very name KRIK and the mission of this newsroom is automatically presented as an accusation against them. Imagine everyone that KRIK has ever mentioned in their articles, hundreds of them, suing KRIK just because they were mentioned in a media that deals with exposing crime and corruption. This is not only the definition of a SLAPP lawsuit, but a direct violence against free speech, an abuse of power, and a threat to free speech and the media. At this moment in time defined as the most difficult for freedom of speech in Serbia.

The fee that the defendants have to pay for such a high compensation claim even before the verdict is high, especially when there are a number of lawsuits. And when the journalists themselves have to pay. When you multiply that with the number of lawsuits I mention in the introduction, just for the month of June, it represents a systemic suppression of the media. And that’s why solidarity is very important in following the trial, but also in our financial support, personal, civil, on which the survival of the media depends. If we want the stories we read on the KRIK website, then we will do everything to ensure that this newsroom survives. If we don’t want to, then it says more about us. 

The court decided that the first-instance proceedings will last two years and four hearings for this process. Then again, imagine 19 proceedings like this and you will understand why these are being interpreted as SLAPP lawsuits. To prevent you from doing anything other than being harassed in the courts by being faced with SLAPP lawsuits like the editorial staff of KRIK.