site.btaParty Co-chair Acquitted of Defaming Another Party Leader

The Sofia Appellate Court has acquitted Continue the Change Co-chair Kiril Petkov of charges of defaming There Is Such a People (TISP) leader Slavi Trifonov, the Court said on Tuesday.

The panel of judges overruled a judgment by the lower Sofia City Court (SCC) ordering Petkov to pay Trifonov BGN 50,000 in non-pecuniary damages for insulting qualifications and defamatory statements made on June 13, 2022 during a news briefing of Continue the Change, broadcast within the framework of a television programme. The SCC held that when Petkov said that in the person of Trifonov "the mafia has just lost its coalition partner", he humiliated and offended the TISP leader. The SCC determined that Petkov's allegations were defamatory and controversial from the point of view of current public conceptions of morality and prosperity.

The Appellate Court rejected Trifonov's claims and awarded Petkov BGN 1,000 in costs to be paid by the TISP leader. The Court held that, considered individually and totally, Petkov's statements did not characterize Trifonov as a person who commits unlawful and morally reprehensible acts. "It is the plaintiff's subjective perception which lies behind these statements, but objectively there is no such suggestion in the statements. This is because, for the most part, the words and expressions used do not relate to the plaintiff's person at all,” the court argued.

At the same time, the statements associated with the plaintiff constitute a permissible criticism of his activities in public office or a negative assessment of them and, as they do not contain defamatory statements or offensive words and expressions, do not constitute unlawful conduct, the court's judgment states.

The appellate court's judgment is appealable before the Supreme Court of Cassation.