Blogger Jailed For Comment
Vukovar resident Damir Fintic will be the first Croat and possibly the first European who will end up in jail for comments on his blog at www.vukovarac.net in 2005.
Fintic has been sentenced to 20 days in prison for comments written by someone else on his blog criticizing former Vukovar Mayor Vladimir Stengl and his wife Dragica.
Blog visitors have written critical comments about how the Stengls acquired property.
Stengl pressed three criminal and three civil charges against Fintic and demanded a total of 250,000 kunas or 33,311 Euros in damages.
Considering that he had no money with which to pay the damages, Fintic decided to go to prison.
He needs to check himself into Osijek prison on 27 October. After that, he will need to spend time in prison once more for a second fine connected to the Stengl case.
The Croatian Journalists Association (HND) has strongly opposed prison for Fintic. It believes Fintic could be the only blog writer to go to prison in Europe. If that happens, HND fears it will change the picture of Croatia as a country that respects freedom of expression.
Fintic told the daily Novi list he had no money with which to pay damages and had refused to accept money from other people because he did not see anything wrong in opening a public forum on his blog.
He added: “I wanted to offer all Vukovar residents a chance to express their opinions in public. Considering that Vukovar suffered a lot in the Homeland war in the 1990s, I expected intensive comments on my blog. But I need to stress I deleted all insulting comments that expressed animosity towards anyone.”
The Stengl family has pressed numerous charges against blogs, the media and journalists, demanding in total almost 100,000 Euros in damages.
This is not good. TheEye is meeting a lawyer within the hour for a social catch-up. There will be some Shop Talk instead, it seems. Although this seems to be limited to Croatia, that doesn’t mean that other countries won’t think it’s a nifty idea.
UPDATE: After a chat with the aforementioned lawyer, the situation appears to be thus: in the UK there is established case law that the blogger is not responsible for Comments, and this argument becomes stronger with more Comments left and the unreasonableness of any expectation of vetting. Even if a Comment allegation would be actionable if untrue then the blogger has no way to be sure of the truth or otherwise of a statement and so is under no certain obligation to remove it. Any disclaimer on the site – whether legally drafted or casual as on this blog, is equally useful as far as it goes. Unless the case in Croatia was heard by incompetent judge or counsel, it may well be legally sound there under an arcane law which hasn’t caught up with blogging and other bloggers could only be tried there if the plaintiff could demonstrate ties to that jurisdiction and a good reputation to defend in it. So basically, don’t let anyone annoy Croatians in your Comments. Thanks to Peter for his good verbal advice and subsequent sarcasm in the Comments here.
You clearly need to be sued for all you have (in Croatia, and since I have recently visited Vukovar I have a jurisdictional connection with the place, and will produce an Australian’s video of my cycling home as a typical Croatian worker for proof) and describing me as ‘a lawyer’ is thoroughly libellous.
Any further advice required?
Peter, my apologies for interrupting our social chat with questions about this and thanks for the sensible advice at the time. Not so many thanks for this answer here!
As you were kind enough to put my mind at rest, I’ll avoid your suggestion of testing our local law with those example comments about a certain politician over here *cough*.
Doew this mean that Alex ‘little shitty mong’ Hilton will, after all, go to jail? Ohhh joy!!
My thanks to TheEye and Peter for that most excellent piece of legal advice. Good, that means I don’t have to change the underwear just yet then.
@Houdini – I bloody well hope so mate!
I don’t particularly care for what reason either, just as long as he goes 😉
OK, so two Croats walk into a bar and one says ……mmmmm, maybe not 😉
Not sure that English case law has a bareing in Croatia, still, they are trying to join the EU are they not ?
If the police come for me, I’ll be like the mint sauce: “on the lam” 🙂
The point about different case law, banned, is of course where you can sue. If a blogger in Gibraltar (or his Commenter) attacks a politician from Gibraltar then because the blog is visible everywhere, he can sue in any country under their local laws. The only proviso is that the courts in the 3rd-party country would ask that politician to demonstrate some valid connection with the country and that he had a good reputation to defend there. So if the politician produces long-lost Croatian relatives then he could bring the case there. If not then its a valid legal defence to say that the Croatian courts shouldn’t hear the case.
That’s why English case law is important here – in my example I’d argue in court that reputational damage would only be caused in the UK as he isn’t known anywhere else to any significant degree. He’d want those Croatian relatives so that he could get the case heard in a judicial environment more slanted in his favour.
Thats why so many women divorce their rich husbands in the UK even if they are US couples…show sufficient connection to the UK (that mansion in Surrey they never visit, for example) and she gets the case heard in the jurisdiction most favourable to her.
Knowing which case law suits you helps you choose your territory to fight on.
Oi, you, sunshine….out!
🙂 Thank you for the explanation Eye.
Dear me, It’s actually all a bit more complicated than that. For all I know, the Croatian courts will claim jurisdiction over all and sundry. So I sue the Eye in Croatia for the libellous remark calling me a lawyer. The Eye may seek, in his defence in the Croatian courts, to show that neither he nor I have any connection with the place (despite my Australian friend’s video of me there) but – again for all I know – the Croatian courts may take the view that since it has been published in Croatia they have jurisdiction (ie can hear the case). I will be pleased to be awarded humungous damages by the Croatian courts. Then comes the difficult bit: I have to get the money off the Eye. I can ask the Croatian courts for all sorts of sanctions against him and (for all I know of Croatian law) he may be sentenced to death for failing to pay. But they can only enforce the sanction in Croatia, so provided the Eye is sensible enough not to visit Vukovar in the near future, he will be OK – more seriously, since he does not have any assets that I know of in Croatia the courts there cannot do much about it. There is the possibility that I may seek to have the Croatian judgment against him enforced in the UK or Gibraltar. At that stage he will need to defend himself and will do so successfully on the grounds that the judgment was obtained on (under English/Gib law) improperly claiming jurisdiction.
There is a further complication (which a commenter above mentions) in that the EU has the Jurisdiction and Judgments Regulation and if and when Croatia joins up then Croatia will be subject to the Regulation. But that Regulation lays down the jurisdictional rules which would (in real life) not allow the Croatian courts to claim jurisdiction in my case against the Eye – so the problem would not arise at all (assuming the Croatian courts, once they have joined the EU, follow EU rules).
Sorry to drone on: the essential advice seems to be that you criticise a Croatian at your peril if you wish to visit Croatia in the future. But you should be OK with rude remarks about people (just insults) or ‘fair comment’. But be wary of alleging that, say, I am a ‘lawyer’ who is involved with criminal money-laundering in Gib, keeping a brothel and cheating friends out of hard-earned beer money. At least one of those is a serious libel – it matters not that you may be able to claim justification on the others.