Throughout the process, attempts were made that were unsuccessful in bringing the parties to an agreement. When the work of submitting the parties' summaries was completed, the time came for a decision.
- The outline of the decision will be as follows: In the first stage, the normative basis will be presented: (a) the course of hearing claims under the Prohibition of Defamation Law; (b) the foundations of the protection of the truth of publication; (c) The special evidentiary rules that apply to the testimony of a victim of a sexual offense. In the next stage, the evidence will be analyzed, findings will be determined and conclusions will be drawn regarding the article in Politikaly in the light of the defense of the truth of the publication. In the second stage, the defense of "responsible journalism" will be discussed, while distinguishing between the subtitle of the article and the body of the article. Afterwards, the "item" will be examined on Channel 13; Finally, the publications attributed to defendant 6, Levinson, will be examined.
- I will preface the hearing to a conclusion and note that after I have given my opinion to the arguments of the parties and the evidence material, I have come to the conclusion that the claim should be dismissed.
- The Normative Infrastructure
The(1) Outline of the hearing of claims according to Prohibition of Defamation Law
- The hearing of defamation lawsuits is conducted in three main stages: In the first stage, an examination is conducted as to whether there was a "publication" of a phrase that falls within the definition of "defamation" (according to sections 1 and 2 of the Prohibition of Defamation Law). In the second stage, the question of whether the defendant has a defense is examined. It is customary to distinguish between several types of defenses: "absolute defenses" (section 13 of the Prohibition of Defamation Law), the "truth of publication" defense (section 14 of the Prohibition of Defamation Law) and "good faith defenses" (section 15 of the Prohibition of Defamation Law, subject to the fact that the action was done in good faith). In the third stage, if it is found that defamation has been published and the defendant does not have a defense, the question of relief is examined. The court has discretion in awarding compensation without proof of damage, while giving weight to various relevant considerations, as well as granting non-monetary remedies for the removal of the publication and the publication of a correction. For a description of the diagram of the various stages, see: Civil Appeal 751/10 Anonymous v. Dayan-Orbach, IsrSC 65(3), 369, paragraph 6 of the opinion of the Honorable Justice (as he was then called) Y. Amit (2012) (hereinafter: the civil appeal Dayan).
- Section 1 of the Prohibition of Defamation Law prohibits the publication of an expression or photograph that is liable to humiliate or degrade a person in the eyes of the public. The expression should be interpreted according to the "natural and ordinary sense of the words" (Civil Appeal 723/74 Haaretz Newspaper Publishing in Tax Appeal v. Electric Company Ltd., IsrSC 31(2) 281, 318 (1977) (hereinafter: the IEC case)). The examination of whether a statement is derogatory or derogatory shall be done according to standards acceptable to a reasonable person in an objective context, in a manner that examines how the publication is understood by the public in accordance with the natural meaning of the words and the reasonable person's inference between the lines in accordance with his life experience and general knowledge (Civil Appeal 6903/12 Canwest Global Communications Corp. Azor, para. 20 (July 22, 2015) (hereinafter: the Azor case)); Civil Appeal 89/04 Nudelman v. Sharansky, para. 17 (August 4, 2008); Civil Appeal Authority 10520/03 Ben Gvir v. Dankner, paragraph 5 of the judgment of the Honorable Judge A. Arbel (November 12, 2006) (hereinafter: the Ben Gvir case); Civil Appeal 740/86 Tumarkin v. Haetzni, IsrSC 33(2) 333, 337 (1989)). It seems that there is no dispute between the parties that what is stated in the article in the plaintiff's case falls within the scope of "defamatory publication".
- As for the defenses, the case law insisted thatthey should also be examined according to the nature of the publication as a whole (Civil Appeal 4534/02 Schocken Network in Tax Appeal v. Herzikovich, IsrSC 58(3), 558, 573 (2004) (hereinafter: the Herzikovich case)). It was further ruled that the protections set forth in the law seek to strike a balance between the right to a good name of the victim and the right to freedom of expression of the advertiser and the public interest in publication ("the public's right to know"). The defenses differ from one another, and each defense is explicit according to the unique interest that lies at its base, and against the background of the balance that it seeks to maintain (Herzikovich, 567).
The(2) Protection "The Truth of the Publication"
- The protection of the truth of publication is anchored in the provision of section 14 of the Law, which reads as follows:
| Protecting the Truth of Publication |