Source:Politika
The European Practice is that value judgments need not be proven and hence one may say that a particular politician is irresponsible or incapable.
The legal understanding of the Serbian Supreme Court in relation to the legal sanctioning of the criticizing of public figures, according to Commissioner for Information of Public Interest Rodoljub Sabic, is akin to European standards, because the accepted practice in advance democracies is that the holders of public functions are obliged to "support" more.
The above, however, according to Sabic, does not mean that such holders of public functions may be slandered, namely one may not willfully and deliberately put forward in the public allegations one knows are untrue.
The domain of freedom of opinion and expression is governed by Article 10 of the European Charter on Human Rights, but also by cases from practice, of which, Sabic says, the best know is "Ligens against Austria" from 1975, in which, following the verdict of the Austrian court in favor of Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kraiski, against the journalist who labeled him as immoral and hypocrite, that verdict was overturned by the European Court of Human Rights.
Sabic adds that the European practice is that value judgments need not be proven. This means that it is allowed to say that a particular politician is "irresponsible, inactive or incapable. This, however, does not apply to facts, namely when if a politician is accused of a concrete act, such as, for example, theft or embezzlement. If there is no evidence supporting this allegation and the author of the allegation is aware of them being untrue, it is a case of slander subject to sanctions. Nevertheless, Sabic adds that in the case of putting forward untrue information too, it is possible for the alleging party to "get away with it". However, such party needs to prove that it had a reason to believe in the accuracy of the stated information, published it in good faith and has done everything to ascertain their veracity.
