Banja Luka/Sarajevo, 28/11/2024 – The Steering Committee of the BH Journalists Association and the Free Media Help Line (FMHL) inform the public that they have supported journalist Vladimir Kovačević in filing a petition to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to protect his reputation and the freedom of speech rights.
The petition at the Strasbourg European Court is based on the violation of Vladimir Kovacevic´s rights and his reputation through the transmission of a defamatory article by the portals of RTRS and Alternative Television (ATV) from Banja Luka, which was originally published by the Serbian tabloid Informer. The article stated that the journalist Kovacevic was a “mercenary” who wrote “as the financiers tell him” and that he participated in the preparation of the coup d’état in Republika Srpska. RTRS and ATV carried the disputed article without investigating the allegations of Informer, that is, without allowing Kovacevic to comment on the disputed allegations.
As a reminder, Kovačević sued the aforementioned media in domestic courts, won the dispute against RTRS and lost against ATV, although the cases are identical. He also filed an appeal to the Bosnia-Herzegovina Constitutional Court against the decision of the lower courts regarding the lawsuit against ATV, but lost the dispute with the Constitutional Court’s explanation that it is unfair for two media outlets to answer and pay damages for the same defamatory article they only transmitted!
In the opinion of the FMHL legal team, the decision of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Constitutional Court from July 2024 is unfair and contrary to the practice of the European Court for the Human Rights, and the proceedings before the Constitutional Court lasted 3 years, which is an unreasonably long period for an institution responsible for the rapid and effective protection of human rights.
On the basis of all the above, BH Journalists and FMHL have supported the submission of the petition to the Court in Strasbourg, and will provide the necessary legal, professional, institutional and any other kind of assistance to journalist Kovacevic and his legal representatives. We believe that the European Court in Strasbourg will rule in favor of Kovacevic and thus correct the injustice inflicted on him by domestic courts, especially given that the defamatory articles were published only a few days after the attempted murder of this journalist.
The BH Journalists Associations Steering Committee
