The Supreme Court of Ukraine has put a final stop to the high-profile case on the protection of honor, dignity, and business reputation between Kyiv resident Vasyl Didus and Dmytro Perov, an assistant to Kyiv City Council deputy Ksenia Semenova. The court ordered Perov to refute the false information he had spread on his Facebook page.
As reported by the publication "Fakty", the Supreme Court left the defendant's cassation appeal without satisfaction, and the decisions of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court and the Kyiv Court of Appeal unchanged. Thus, the conclusions of the two previous instances became final and binding.
The subject of the dispute was Dmytro Perov’s publications, in which he accused Vasyl Didus of “beating” and “illegal construction” at 26 Ivan Franko Street in Kyiv. Courts of three instances found that these allegations were not supported by reliable evidence and were presented as facts, not as value judgments.
The Supreme Court decision, according to media reports, states that the reconstruction at the specified address was carried out on legal grounds: in compliance with urban planning conditions, project documentation, and approvals from the Department of Cultural Heritage Protection. Therefore, the accusations of "self-construction" and violation of the law are untrue.
The court concluded that Perov's widely circulated statements violated the plaintiff's personal non-property rights and “cannot be considered a permissible manifestation of freedom of expression” within the framework of current legislation. In effect, it is a matter of recognizing these statements as defamatory.
According to journalists, the court's decision obliged Dmytro Perov to delete the relevant publications, post a refutation on his own Facebook page, and also pay Vasyl Didus 3,000 hryvnias in moral damages and reimburse legal costs.
