Upholding an earlier ruling, Bosnia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that Republika Srpska’s public broadcaster, RTRS, slandered the journalist Vladimir Kovacevic.
Journalist Vladimir Kovacevic after the attack. Photo: Gerila.info
Confirming a lower court decision, Bosnia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that Republika Srpska’s public broadcaster, RTRS, slandered the journalist Vladimir Kovacevic who was brutally attacked covering mass protests in Banja Luka four years ago.
The ruling, which follows an appeal by RTRS and its former editor-in-chief Sinisa Mihailovic, confirms that the broadcaster slandered Kovacevic, who was attacked after covering a “Justice for David” protest in 2018, which had attempted to push the authorities to resolve the case of the unexplained death of a 21-year-old man in Banja Luka.
Kovacevic welcomed the ruling. “The decision of the Constitutional Court to reject the appeal of RTRS was the only logical move, because it was a clear question of slander,” he told BIRN on Friday.
The Constitutional Court stated that “the appellants [RTRS] did not take into account the plaintiff’s particularly vulnerable situation due to the attempted murder, nor can it be concluded that they had a ‘sincere intention’ to inform the public about topics of public importance” when publishing the article.
Immediately after his attempted murder, on August 31, 2018, after Kovacevic was released for home treatment, RTRS published an article on its website entitled “Creeping coup d’état in Republika Srpska! They don’t want elections, they overthrow the government on the street!”
The article stated, among other things: “The latest events regarding the attack on a journalist of the opposition-friendly BN TV and the spontaneous gathering of journalists in front of the Palace of the Republic in Banja Luka further fuel claims that a creeping coup d’état is on the scene.
It added that “the latest case of an attack on a journalist sympathetic to the opposition serves the purpose of animating wider social strata and calling for defence against the alleged dictatorship of [Bosnian Serb leader Milorad] Dodik and his party.”
“The aforementioned journalist is known to have recently received 80,000 dollars from USAID for some kind of internet portal,” it continued, portraying him as a “foreign mercenary”.
Kovacevićcsued RTRS before the Basic Court of Banja Luka for injury to his honour and reputation caused by defamation. The court agreed and ruled that RTRS and then editor Mihailovic should jointly pay him 5,000 Bosnian Marks (some 2,500 euros) in compensation.
The same court concluded that Kovacevic had proved that he did not receive 80,000 US dollars from USAID, and according to the court, “none of the ‘negativity’ attributed to him has been proven”.
Following this verdict, RTRS and Mihailovic appealed to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, claiming that their freedom of expression was being violated, and adding that no journalist was named in the contested text.
The Constitutional Court, however, considered that the court in Banja Luka correctly concluded that even without stating the name of the journalist, it was clear who it was about, and that he was portrayed to the public as a “foreign mercenary”.
The same article was also published on a website of US-sanctioned television close to Dodik, ATV. Ironically, Kovacevic lost his case over that article, and had to pay the court expenses to ATV and its former editor-in-chief, Nenad Trbic.
Marko Colic and Nedeljko Dukic were sentenced to five and four years in prison for the attack on Kovacevic, which was characterized as attempted murder. The masterminds behind the attack were never officially revealed.