The Court of First Instance of Athens rejected a lawsuit filed by Grigoris Dimitriadis, who had been a close associate of the prime minister, who had sued the media and certain journalists for their revelations about the wiretapping.
The lawsuit was dismissed on the grounds that the reports of journalists about the interceptions, the questions about Grigoris Dimitriadis’ relations with companies involved in the trafficking of the Pretador malware in our country, were legitimate, as they were, as emphasized in the decision, not to damage his honor and reputation but for reasons of justified journalistic interest.
Also in the decision it is emphasized, among other things, that the publications in question did not exceed the limits of the criticism that should be made of political figures, while the decision has references to decisions of the Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg and jurisprudence data).
In the reasoning of the judges who made the decision, the publications that caused the filing of the lawsuit are also detailed (Editors’ Newspaper, Reporters United website) as well as the witness statements in court, among which emphasis is placed on the testimony of the well-known constitutional expert, professor emeritus of Nikos Alivizatos of Law, who referred to the role of the press and the duty of journalists for revelations, especially for serious institutional matters.
What does the court order say?
According to the court decision (numbered 283 of 2024), both the Editors’ Newspaper, which published the disputed article entitled “Big Nephew, Big Brother”, as well as the website Reporter United, as well as responsible journalists of the media in question, published questions and information concerning Grigoris Dimitriadis regarding the illegal surveillance through Pretador, in the context of justified journalistic interest. The lawsuit, in addition to the media managers against whom it had been directed, also concerned the journalist Thanasis Koukakis, who had published the articles in question on social media. Thanasis Koukakis, who was the target of illegal surveillance, but also of the EYP, is one of the first to raise the whole matter publicly and before the courts.
Specifically as stated in the decision:
“… Due to the journalistic nature of the publication, the public office held by the plaintiff, which has the character of a purely political position, and even a non-elected one, as well as the importance for the public sphere of the wiretapping case, it is judged that there is a justified interest of the editors and therefore the injustice of the defamation suffered by the plaintiff is removed”.
Regarding the second issue, the plaintiff’s relationship with companies that were involved with the malicious software “Predator”, as can be seen from the content of the article there is a detailed description of true business transfers, based on the journalistic investigation into the operation of the “Predator” software in Greece.
Witness statements
A significant part of the witness statements during the hearing process was spent on this specific issue, of which the plaintiff’s witness did not testify any evidence to support his claims, the second witness of the defendants, Anastasios Telloglou, developed the path of the journalistic investigation into the case of, while the professor of Constitutional Law, Nikos Alivizatos, testified that in his experience as a constitutional expert, the authors of the article did not exceed the limits of journalistic ethics, did not present indications as facts, nor did they express themselves in an abusive manner towards the plaintiff, however reserving for the headlines of the front page and of the inside pages “The Great Nephew and the Great Brother” and “The Watchmen and the Great.. .Nephew”.
It is worth noting that the judges accept that there was no false fact regarding the path of natural and legal companies described in the article.
In addition, according to the judgment of the majority, there does not seem to have been any bad faith on the part of the editors of the article towards the plaintiff before the publication of the article, adding that they used mild expressions, asked the questions of the journalistic investigation as required by journalistic ethics and provided him with a period sufficient to to answer, while they stated their intention to wait until the publication of the article, so that he could prepare his answers.
The jurisprudence of the ECtHR
Regarding this part, the judges again refer to the ECtHR’s jurisprudence, noting that… “Consequently, the determination of a specific purpose of insulting requires that an gratuitous personal attack or insult against the plaintiff, which escapes the purposes and findings of the publication, be recognized as an expression contempt towards the specific person without other documentation, so that it cannot be characterized as a value judgment, and the characterizations that will be used against a public figure must be so extreme that they cannot be tolerated even at the extreme limit of tolerance set for the specific persons.
Based on the above, in this case the use of the expressions that accompany the publication have a close semantic connection with the rest of its content and does not constitute an uncritical targeting of the plaintiff for politicians or individuals”.
On the contrary, a judge, the president in the trial, dissented and requested that the action of Grigoris Dimitriadis be accepted, arguing in favor of the opinion that the publications in question were defamatory.
According to the decision, Grigoris Dimitriadis is asked to pay the court costs.
The lawyer of the journalist Thanasis Koukakis and others, Zacharias Keses, in his statement mentions about the decision.
“Highly symbolic decision with reference to the particularly rich jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, which highlights the need for a greater level of protection of freedom of expression. At the same time, it is a guide on how to deal with abusive lawsuits against journalists, which only aim to discourage public participation and silence the press.”
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