Fundamental rights
Defamation, honour and reputation: what to do under Georgian law
How to protect your honour and reputation against false statements of fact: the 100-day limitation for a defamation claim, the difference between a statement of fact and an opinion, who is liable, how the burden of proof is divided and what remedies are available.
What to do
- ⏰ The deadline comes first: a defamation claim must be filed within 100 days from the moment the person learned, or could have learned, of the statement (this is Art. 19 of the law) (Law of Georgia on Freedom of Speech and Expression, Art. 18).
- Fact or opinion: defamation is a statement containing a materially false fact that discredits the person (Law on Freedom of Speech and Expression, Art. 1); an opinion (an evaluation that does not contain a verifiable fact) is protected by absolute privilege (Art. 4); doubt over “fact or opinion” is resolved in favour of opinion (Art. 7). An insult with no assertion of fact is, as a rule, an opinion. Privileges: statements made in political debates, in court or in representative bodies do not give rise to liability (Art. 5); a statement about an indefinite group, or one that does not unambiguously identify the plaintiff, cannot be the subject of a dispute (Art. 6).
- Defendant: the author or editor; for a journalist's publication, the owner of the media outlet is liable; a technical distributor is an improper defendant (Art. 6).
- Burden of proof: the plaintiff specifies which materially false fact the statement contains and why it discredits them (Art. 13); the defendant is liable unless it proves that the statement contains no materially false fact (Art. 13). Public figure: the defendant is released from liability by proving good faith (reasonable verification, no knowledge of falsity) (Art. 14); doubt about a person's status is resolved in favour of the public figure (Art. 7).
- Remedies: publication of a message about the court's decision; if that is insufficient, compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary harm; an apology cannot be compelled (Art. 17); information disseminated through the media is refuted by the same media (Civil Code of Georgia (CC), Art. 18).
- Risk for the plaintiff: for a plainly unfounded defamation claim, the defendant may recover reasonable monetary compensation from the plaintiff (Law on Freedom of Speech and Expression, Art. 18).
- Where to apply: the district (city) court for a civil claim; before filing, a written demand to the author or media outlet to retract the statement.
- Evidence: a record of the publication (screenshots with the URL and date, preferably a notarial inspection), its reach and consequences, evidence that the fact is false.
- Pitfalls: collecting evidence for months and missing the 100-day deadline; suing over an evaluative opinion, which means losing and facing a counter-claim for compensation; suing the platform rather than the author or the media owner.
Be sure to check
- a short 100-day deadline to sue, counted from when the person learned of the statement
- fact versus opinion (an opinion is absolutely protected)
- burden of proof: the plaintiff identifies the false fact, the defendant proves its truth; for public figures, the defence of good faith
- what can be obtained and how to secure the evidence