Bulgarian court ruling criticized as 'judicial harassment' of journalists by watchdog
The Reporters Without Borders organization condemned a recent Bulgarian court ruling in which two journalists and a website were found to be guilty of defamation in connection with articles published in 2018. Boris Mitov and Stoyana Georgieva, journalists for RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service, were found to have caused physical and mental suffering to former SCC chair Svetlin Mihailov and ordered to pay him damages of 60,000 Bulgarian lev ($34,659).
Mitov covered the campaign of Mihailov to become Bulgaria's largest district court's head for the news website Mediapool in 2018. Georgieva was editor-in-chief of Mediapool at the time. Judge Daniela Popova found that four of those articles contained "defamatory allegations against Mihailov" on December 21. Lawyers for Mitov and Georgieva argued the articles in question contained information about Mihailov, including questions about his sizable wealth and property, that appeared in other publications both at the time and since then. The court did not specify exactly which extracts from the articles Popova deemed "indecent, vulgar, and cynical."
Mediapool and the two journalists were each ordered to pay Mihailov 20,000 lev ($11,553). According to Pavol Szalai, the head of RSF's European Union and Balkans desk, "This gag verdict could set a dangerous precedent for press freedom in Bulgaria." According to Szalai, "The disproportionate amount of damages that the journalists have been ordered to pay could have a chilling effect on media coverage of public interest."Reporters Without Borders noted that Popova took over the case only two months before issuing a final ruling, replacing another judge who had been dealing with it for nearly a year. The media monitoring group claims that her decision makes no mention of the fact that the plaintiff is a public figure and was once the court's president.
Jamie Fly, RFE/RL's president, called the court's decision "outrageous" and said it was designed to intimidate some of Bulgaria's best investigative journalists for reporting publicly known facts.“ The public has a right to accountability, and intimidation tactics like this will not keep RFE/RL from informing its audience about issues of public interest,” Fly said in a statement. A court ruling has been appealed by attorneys for the journalists and Mediapool.
