Liens imposed in an execution case will not be considered defamation

A bank imposed a lien on a former customer as part of collection procedures in which there was a small remaining debt of only ILS 1,500, after 3 years in which the customer did not receive any notice from the bank regarding the existence of the debt in the collection case. The client demanded compensation for defamation and damage to his good reputation.
The Court dismissed the claim and held that liens imposed by the bank as part of a collection case are immune under the law and do not constitute defamation. The imposition of lien orders that present a person as someone who does not pay his debts in a way that there was no other alternative but to impose liens on his property, allegedly constitute publication of defamation against him. However, a distinction must be made between a lien imposed by an administrative authority in accordance with its authority, in which the question of whether the lien was duly imposed, and a lien imposed within the scope of a judicial proceeding, because under the law a publication of 'defamation' made in the course of a judicial proceeding has absolute immunity. Here, there was no significance to the question of whether the lien was duly executed or not as the lien was imposed in a judicial proceeding (debt collection case) and therefore it is not a publication that can be considered defamatory.