Court: Kaja Kallas must retract claims made about Varro Vooglaid, SAPTK
The first-tier Harju County Court has partly upheld a lawsuit filed in June 2022 by Varro Vooglaid, head of the Foundation for the Protection of Family and Tradition (SAPTK), and by the organization itself, which required former prime minister Kaja Kallas to retract claims made about the plaintiffs.
The court agreed with the plaintiffs that no Estonian Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) officers had ever been attacked at demonstrations organized by Varro Vooglaid and SAPTK, and that Kaja Kallas' contrary assertions were without grounds.
In line with the ruling, Kallas is also required to retract as false a claim about the organizers of a demonstration held on October 23, 2021, on Tallinn's Freedom Square (Vabaduse väljak).
According to the ruling, Kallas is required to publish the following post on her Facebook page within a 10-day period: "I, Kaja Kallas, made incorrect factual statements in a post dated February 17, 2022, claiming that Estonian PPA officers were attacked at a demonstration organized by Varro Vooglaid and the Foundation for the Protection of Family and Tradition (SAPTK) on Toompea, and that Varro Vooglaid and the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) organized the October 23, 2021, demonstration on Freedom Square. These claims are not true."
On Kallas' statement that: "We remember the October 23 demonstration organized by Varro Vooglaid and EKRE on Freedom Square, where they attacked Estonian doctors, scientists, and healthcare workers," the court declined to uphold the plaintiffs' complaint and found that the average reader would interpret the word "attack" as a verbal assault and that various placards and speeches presented at the demonstration could be considered verbal attacks on Estonian doctors, scientists, and healthcare workers.
The plaintiffs considered Kallas' statement false primarily with regard to the attacks on doctors, scientists, and healthcare workers being attributed to them as organizers of the demonstration (which the court found EKRE was not).
According to the plaintiffs, they did not carry out any type of attack against representatives of these professions, while Kallas had not proven otherwise in the course of the hearings.
Furthermore, the court did not find any incorrect factual claims or inappropriate value judgments in Kaja Kallas' statement to the effect that: "On the same day as blue and yellow flags fly worldwide in support of Ukraine's independence, which is targeted by Russian aggression, a so-called 'freedom fighter' and 'protector of traditions,' hiding behind the blue-black-and-white flag attacks Estonia's independence."
The court found that while the remark was clearly directed at Vooglaid, Kallas used a figurative mode of expression that does not imply Vooglaid committed acts against the state.
Furthermore, the court determined that Kallas' value judgment could not be deemed inappropriate in the context of Vooglaid's own statements, which the court found were ambiguous.
The court also dismissed a claim for compensation for non-material damage.
The court reasoned that Vooglaid would have to endure the false claims made against him as they did not contain any inherently degrading, humiliating, or ridiculing nature, and therefore did not cross the threshold of unlawfulness.
The court found that Kallas' statements about Vooglaid were a part of the cut-and-thrust of normal political debate.
In light of the above, the court decided to allocate 80 percent of the legal costs to be borne by the plaintiffs and 20 percent to the defendant.
Vooglaid said the court's decision is disappointing. He considered it symbolically significant that what he called Kallas' propagation of defamation had been affirmed by the court, but he also found it absurd that the solution penalized the defamed party financially rather than the defamer.
Both parties have 30 days to appeal the court ruling.
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Editor: Merili Nael, Andrew Whyte