ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 2005.
Autor: Domaći
Jezik: Engleski

The Case of Civil Servant ALEKSANDAR TIJANIC

Public files “Not to be forgotten”

Yucom, Beograd, 2005.
204 strane, A4 format.
Biljan Kovačević Vučo

Veoma lepo očuvana.

Belgrade, September 15, 2009

Supreme Court Forbids YUCOM’s Book „THE CASE OF CIVIL SERVANT ALEKSANDAR TIJANIĆ” on Grounds of Infringement of Aleksandar Tijanić’s Moral Rights


At a July 23, 2009 session of a Supreme Court of Serbia Chamber composed of Justices Snežana Andrejević, Spomenka Zarić and Sonja Brkić, three and a half years following the first instance decision brought by the Belgrade District Court, a final judgement was passed: Aleksandar Tijanić wins in spite of the law and contrary to morals, while YUCOM’s work is rendered impossible.
This political decision to support Tijanić was pronounced by a Supreme Court jugdement which overrules a Belgrade District Court’s first instance decision passed three and a half years after ago. The Supreme Court ruled that::
1. YUCOM should pay Tijanić 200,000 dinars plus interest to compensate a violation of his moral rights;
2. The book „The Case of Civil Servant Aleksandar Tijanić” and its further multiplication are forbidden;
3. YUCOM is obliged to publish the Supreme Court’s decision in the “Politika“ daily and bear the costs thereof.

However, this is not all: since the Supreme Court cancelled a part of the District Court ruling referring to Tijanić’s property rights, it is to be expected that further financial retribution against YUCOM will be employed with the view of saving Aleksandar Tijanić’s image and oeuvre. The sspirit of the new Public Information Law, enacted last week to curb media freedom in Serbia, has prevailed in the Supreme Court.

How does the Supreme Court substantiate this disgraceful politically motivated

Having established beyond doubt the fact that YUCOM had published the book „The Case of Civil Servant Aleksandar Tijanić”, which is composed mostly of quotes from original articles and commentaries authored by Aleksandar Tijanić and published between 1976 and 2004; that these quotes were duly accompanied with information on source and date; that the book represents a critique of Aleksandar Tijanić as a public figure, and that these quotes were used in this critique, as well as that YUCOM posesses neither a permission nor a author’s contract with Tijanić, the Supreme Court rules that YUCOM has infringed on his moral copyright, since “an author has the exclusive right to publish his/her work and determine the manner in which that work is to be published”, as well as that “the author has the exclusive right to protect his/her work’s integrity, and particularly to oppose public dissemination of his/her work in an altered or incomplete form, while observing the concrete technical form of dissemination and good business practices”.

It is here that we land on the terrain of retribution, politics and the Supreme Court’s shameless disregard of the law.

The District Court did rule that YUCOM, while preparing the work which represents a critique of Aleksandar Tijanić as a public personality had made use of the right to quote as prescribed by Law, that the quotes were accurate and that their purpose was to illustrate the critique of the plaintiff as a public personality; therefore no permission or contract with the author is necessary.

The Supreme Court alters this part of the District Court’s ruling and requests -- presently from YUCOM, and subsequently from all those who venture to use public personalities’ publicly available statements in attempts to point out at their public activities -- that contracts be concluded with them prior to embarking on work!


THE SUPREME COURT RULES THAT BY QUOTING TIJANIĆ’S SENTENCES SUCH AS „IF ZORAN ĐINĐIĆ SURVIVES, SERBIA WILL NOT”, YUCOM COMMITTED AN INFRINGEMENT OF HIS MORAL COPYRIGHT, SINCE IT WAS PUBLISHED WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.
precedentalYUCOM IS FORBIDDEN TO USE TIJANIĆ’S QUOTES IN THE FUTURE.

It is needless to emphasize that by using an ostensibly harmless form of protection of moral copyright, this decision extinguishes remembrance as a form of struggle for human rights, abolishes criticism and places in the hands of public personalities the most dangerous weapon: the right to determine which part(s) of their public statements and writings while in office can and which cannot be published.

The Supreme Court’s ruling represents a precedent because it abolishes the right to criticize and the right to free expression. It’s a priori abolition of public personalities of any accountability whatsoever also represents a major precedent.

Every single quote from the media and every statement will in the future be possible to publish after obtaining its author’s consent. Slobodan Milo[evi’’s statements, for example, will be protected by his family as his copyright. A consequent application of this precedential judgement will extingushes the right to criticize any public personality because it will be reduced to libel, since no one will dare use quotes without their author’s prior permission.

It is shameful that the Supreme Court consciously misuses copyright for the purpose of supressing any criticism of public personalities.
Apart from being directly contrary to the provisions of the Copyright Law, this decision is also dangerous and it necessitates that the position of Supreme Court Justices who -- in disregard of their high position in the judiciary -- allowed themselves to manipulate the law in order to keep political arrangements with Aleksandar Tijanić afloat.
It is tragic for Serbia that the Supreme Court’s writ was delivered to YUCOM on the very day when Amnesty Intenational issued its special report Serbia: Human rights defenders at risk ( which states that human rights defenders in Serbia are at risk because “Serbian state institutions members of the government, parliament and leading public figures, use litigation as a tool to intimidate human rights defenders.

In November 2008, Biljana Kovačević-Vučo and YUCOM were sued by Aleksandar Tijanić for €100,000 in a defamation case after YUCOM published a book titled ’The Case of Civil Servant Aleksandar Tijanić’. The book was based on statements by Aleksandar Tijaniæ, director of the state-run Radio-Television Serbia and a former minister in Slobodan Milošević`s government,” the AI report says.

It is in the name of human rights and in defense of the rule of law that YUCOM declares that it wil not act as ordered by the Supreme Court. Its bank account will probably be frozen as a result of that. Putting up with such a decistion would run contrary to all principles YUCOM as an organization of human rights defenders stands for, since paying damages to Aleksandar Tijanić would represent racketeering under the auspices of the highest judicial instance YUCOM refuses to take part in. Paying this fine would represent a monetary compensation for publicly expressed criticism without the consent of the criticized person. That is impermissible.




Biljana Kovačević-Vučo
Chairwoman