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Baner Consilium Iuridicum

Vol. 1 No. 3–4 (2022)

Artykuły

Gloss to the judgment of the Polish Supreme Court of October 13, 2021, I NSNk 1/21

  • Grzegorz Maroń
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52097/ci.5649  [Google Scholar]
Published: 2023-10-10

Abstract

The article is a commentary to the judgment of the Polish Supreme Court of October 13, 2021, I NSNk 1/21. This judgment found that the journalist, describing the pro-abortion so-called “black protest” in the Internet TV program as „neo-Nazi rush”, „feminazist rush”, „Nazism” and calling the demonstrators „a bunch of complete gaffs” and „total fools” did not commit the crime of defamation (Article 212 of the Polish Penal Code) to the detriment of one of the participants of the assembly. The Supreme Court rightly accepted, referring in particular to the Strasbourg jurisprudence, that the mere offensiveness of statements does not mean that they are defamatory within the meaning of criminal law. The use of offensive terms against a personally unindividualized victim in a public debate on a socially important issue properly was not treated in a given case as a crime of defamation. The Supreme Court is also right, raising the requirement that the courts hearing cases under Art. 212 of the Penal Code should remain neutral and impartial towards the views presented in a pluralist and democratic society without asymmetrically limiting the public discourse. However, one should be skeptical about the Supreme Court’s use of the conceptual and normative category of the “right to offend” others.

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