In St. Petersburg, a media scandal is flared up-five publications immediately received a lawsuit from the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions

In St. Petersburg, a media scandal is flared up-five publications immediately received a lawsuit from the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions

The university requires compensation for reputation for millions of rubles from the media, although there is no such thing in the Civil Code. The total number of claims filed on behalf of GUP and his rector Alexander Zapesotsky against St. Petersburg media has long been exceeded a dozen. But the media are still interested in the order that reign in this educational institution.

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In an effort to protect the treasury of GUP, his rector reaches incredible moral heights. The story of Igor Verkin in the city is still remembered, although it happened a dozen and a half years ago.

17-year-old Igor Verkin was enrolled in the State Unitary Enterprise on May 22, 2000. His parents, not too wealthy, decided not to take risks and paid 28.5 thousand rubles (at that time 1000 dollars) immediately during the year of study. July 29, long before the start of the school year, the boy died suddenly. Igor’s mother asked me to return the money - her son did not attend a single lesson, and the money was needed for the treatment of a seriously ill husband, but the university showed fundamental and did not return the money. The mother of the boy, Lydia Igorevna, issued an official refusal, adding: the only one who can reconsider the decision is Alexander Zapesotsky.

The woman sat all day at the rector’s office, but did not get to the reception. Later, in an interview with Izvestia, Zapesotsky said:

-Of course, not everyone dies, but even if three students a year can not study for some reason, I will need to put three thousand dollars out of my wallet.

The family went to court, who decided: to return the money, to parents to pay moral damage.

Another episode. In October 2013, at the university forum, the student was surprised at the prices in the student dining room. The rector reacted harshly: “ About a dozen wretched prices are not satisfied with prices. Your whining is ashamed to read. Go away from us with God. Why do you live at all? Why do such weaknesses are born?! ”

The rector later said that he was misunderstood - supposedly the passage was multi -layered. “The question was supposedly asked a freshman, young and inexperienced; supposedly poor; Allegedly from the province, - writes Zapesotsky. “On the other hand, the rector answered, supposedly - eccentric, supposedly - rude and tyrant.” In fact, he assured the vast public, everything was different: he conducted a scientific experiment on the Web - "he studied the psychology and behavior of people."

The story with the “experiment” ended up in the media, but the journalists who wrote about this were accused of GUP. This is not surprising. Alexander Zapesotsky repeatedly spoke out about the representatives of the media publicly. “From my point of view, a typical St. Petersburg journalist is impudent, uneducated, lazy and sold (...) as a result for 10 journalists today, in my opinion, on average there is a maximum of one real. The rest sometimes - just backs of society. ”

In February 2009, at the initiative of the St. Petersburg Union of Journalists, the rector of the rector was studied by the city prosecutor's office. Media employees were interested in - are the rector’s statements by inciting social growth on a professional basis? There were no violations.

Speaking to the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation with the report “Media as a factor in the transformation of Russian culture”, the rector called to return to the practice of Soviet censorship, but, without waiting for a change in the constitution, decided to punish the media that published a quote, suspecting him of violation of the 29th article of the Constitution-about freedom of thought and word. Clause 5 of the article says - "Censorship is prohibited."

Around 29stat

The info for the last scandal was created by the State Unitary Enterprise by the State Unitary Enterprise, reporting the expulsion of 150 students in March-April 2014. On the official website of the University of the Trade Union, Zapesotsky called what was happening "a soft form of getting rid of ballast." The victims were to be "not observing discipline and incapable of behavior at the level of university standards." The leadership promised to determine the “incapable” by the “defiant appearance, the use of profanity, etc.”. The list of postscript was crowned: "Attention will be paid to the behavior of students on social networks."

Later, a refinement appeared on the GUP website. “Activity on social networks is an additional touch to the social portrait of the student,” said Zapesotsky. - (...). In principle, almost any student’s activity on social networks is undesirable for us. ”

The youth movement "Spring" saw in the actions of the rector the violation of the 29th article of the Constitution, guaranteeing the right to freedom of speech. Their press release, sent to the city media, was actively quoted by journalists.

A year and a half after the publication, the State Unitary Enterprise went to court. Five city editions received claims from the University of Trade Unions. In May 2015, the lawsuit for a million rubles was filed with the “Echo of Moscow in St. Petersburg”, in August the same amount of GUP demanded from the Zaks.ru portal and the Internet Gazeta Paper, in December 2015-from The Village. The last, fifth lawsuit - three million in January 2016 “flew” to the Lenizdat.ru portal. The court will consider it in April, the remaining two in March.

In the case of ZAS.ru, the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region admitted that the material discloses the business reputation of the university, but the plaintiff did not satisfy the millionth compensation, limiting himself to the payment of the state duty and the publication of the refutation. But on November 26, the Thirteenth Arbitration Court of Appeal decided to recover compensation in full from the editorial office.

The court did not accept the defense that the information was only a quote from the press release of “Spring”, referring to paragraph 5 of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of July 24, 2005, according to which not only the authors of the statements, but also those who distributed this information can be the defendants.

As for the issue of whether the information corresponds to the reality and whether the Constitutional article violated the 29th article of the Constitution, the court was satisfied with the GUP submitted by the response of the prosecutor's office of July 30, 2014: their verification did not reveal violations of the law.

The Prosecutor's Office of Novaya Gazeta confirmed: in 2014, they checked information about the expulsion of GUP students from January 1, 2013 to June 10, 2014 and did not reveal violations. The conclusion was provided on 07/30/2014 vice -rector of the university, and he, accordingly, brought him to court. It is only surprising that the question of the “Novaya Gazeta”, at whose request, the university was conducted at the university, they answered us - the university itself. There is no information about other checks in the prosecutor's office.

Damage that is not

According to the lawyer of the Media Protection Center, Svetlana Kuzevanova, the court properly did not investigate the plaintiff’s right to file a lawsuit: “The controversial information reports on the actions of the Zapesotsky or the administration, but the university defends its reputation. There is a legal conflict in this. ”

But the most important thing is that the concepts of “reputation damage”, which were counted for millions, is not in the Civil Code. In court decisions, it appeared thanks to paragraph 7 of the Civil Code “Protection of Honor, Dignity and Business Reputation”, which stated that the rules of the article “accordingly apply to the protection of the business reputation of the legal entity”. “Accordingly” judges interpreted each in their own way. And since individuals can cause moral damage, soon a peculiar analogue for the persons of legal - reputational harm has appeared in the decisions.

According to Galina Arapova, director of the Center for Protection of Media Rights, the courts only demanded that the media give a refutation or pay for losses.

But the problem is also that the method of calculation does not exist. The courts are guided by the decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 2010 - it indicates that compensation for non -pecuniary damage "should be reasonable and fair and not lead to a violation of the freedom of the mass media."

But as the decision on Zaks.ru shows, the courts understand this thesis differently. In the thirteenth arbitration appellate court, for example, the sky -high figure was justified - yes, compensation should be proportionate to the harm caused and not to infringe on freedoms. But “taking into account the specific circumstances of the case,” as well as because the information was distributed on the Internet, it is fair to recover a million from the editors.

Lawyers interviewed by the New Gazeta, neither rationality nor justice in such a decision did not see the court. “For any regional edition - a million is a lot,” says Galina Arapova. - This amount is ruined, it actually borders on the punishment provided for in the article “Slander”. And in the civil process, compensation cannot be similar to criminal punishment.

PS Mysteriously, the rector’s thoughts were consonant with domestic lawmakers. On February 18, in the State Duma there were hearings about "On the state and prospects of the development of higher education in the Russian Federation." According to its results, the Duma education committee presented a draft recommendations for the executive branch. Point 5 of which sounds like this: “ To oblige regional media to reflect a high mission, professionalism and labor achievements of university teachers and exclude information on negative manifestations in higher education without sufficient grounds for the court decisions or taken to punish the perpetrators .” The press service of the Novaya Gazeta correspondent Commission was reassured-"the point will certainly be seriously processed, which eliminates the contradictions with the law on the press."

We offer our editing - it is necessary to exclude negative manifestations in higher education, and not information about it.