The court rejected the Russian language teacher’s lawsuit against A. Ramanauskas for the defense of honor and dignity – Respublika.lt

“The court decided to reject the lawsuit and award a verdict from Ž. Bortkevič defendant A. Ramanauskas 4,961 euros in litigation costs”, announced the judge Jurgita Rimeikienė who examined the civil case.

The court’s decision has not yet entered into force, it can be appealed to the Vilnius District Court.

Ž. Bortkevič, in the lawsuit submitted to the court, asked to recognize that the information spread by A. Ramanauskas about her on the social network Facebook humiliates her honor and dignity.

The woman appealed to the court regarding the following Facebook posts of A. Ramanauskas (April 2022 and March 2023): “We are further interested in Vata with access to children/youth education. Meet: Russian language teacher ZB. As far as I know, this Russo-fascist has already been expelled from several educational institutions for barking Russo-fascist. But you still have access to Lithuanian children…”; (…)”; “Some time has passed, and the Russo-fascist has access to Lithuanian children again. ZB seems to have received shelter at the VGTU Engineering Lyceum. Ministry of Education, Science and Sports, please investigate this.”

The Russian language teacher also asked the court to oblige A. Ramanauskas to publicly apologize to her, to remove the records of the dispute related to the plaintiff from the account of the social website, and to award legal costs to the plaintiff in favor of the defendant.

A. Ramanauskas evaluated the statements as an opinion

According to J. Rimeikienė, the judge of Vilnius city district court who made the decision in the case and announced it, the court, after evaluating all the circumstances of the case, the text of all A. Ramanauskas’ statements, the context, the connection with other information provided, assesses that the text published by the defendant is Ž. An assessment of Bortkevich’s past public and private comments in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine and conclusions about it.

“The statements of the defendant (A. Ramanauskas – ELTA) about the plaintiff (Ž. Bortkevič – ELTA) are expressed in descriptive, commentary words and statements, but they do not contain information about a specific event and specific actions, the existence and correctness of which could be verified.

The statements are not sufficient to be evaluated as news, as a statement of clear facts – they contain general information and subjective assessment, they do not provide specific information about a specific fact that happened, therefore the criteria of truth cannot be applied to these statements.

After evaluating the context of the disseminated statements, the construction of the wording, it can be concluded that the defendant (A. Ramanauskos – ELTA) expressed his subjective assessment of facts and data with the statements of the dispute, that is, the statements of the dispute should be considered as opinions”, – J. Rimeikienė described the reasons for the decision in the case.

According to the judge, the court decides that in this particular case A. Ramanauskas had sufficient factual basis for a negative opinion about Ž. Bortkevich, her attitude towards the war started by Russia in Ukraine, to form and spread support for the implemented policy.

“In the court’s opinion, the word “Russo-fascist” used in the claims of the dispute, taking into account all the established factual circumstances, cannot be considered as humiliating honor and dignity,” said the judge.

Ž. In her complaint, Bortkevič stated to the court that she believes that A. Ramanauskas’s statements incite national discord, are discriminatory on the basis of nationality, and are directed against persons of Russian nationality. However, in the opinion of the court, after evaluating all the written material in the case, there is no reason to draw such a conclusion.

“There is not a single statement related to the plaintiff’s nationality in the records of the dispute, and the records only emphasize the plaintiff’s profession in order to draw attention to the plaintiff’s behavior when publicly commenting on Facebook,” J. Rimeikienė explained.

The judge drew attention to the fact that A. Ramanauskas in his post actually addressed the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports, encouraging it to evaluate public Ž. Bortkevich, who is also a teacher, said.

“The plaintiff’s own public behavior allows us to conclude that such an appeal by the defendant is fair,” said the judge.

Ž. Bortkevič filed a lawsuit after social activist A. Ramanauskas published on Facebook that Russian language teachers had sent insults and threats to other teachers who, after the war in Ukraine, publicly announced their support for Ukraine.