A Former Prosecutor, Featured in a Media Investigation, Wants to Sue Several Media Outlets for Allegedly Harming His Dignity and Honour

Ziarul de Gardă (ZdG), Unimedia.INFO and NORDNEWS news portals have recently received a prior request from former prosecutor Vladimir Mosneaga, who states that his dignity and honour were harmed by an investigation published by ZdG and taken over by the two news portals. He demands compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages. In their turn, the three publications regard this statement as unsubstantiated, stating that no one may forbid or prevent the media from disseminating information of public interest within the limits of the law.

Vladimir Mosneaga, who had worked until recently in the Prosecutor's Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS), and previously in the Unit for Criminal Investigation of Exceptional Cases of General Prosecutor's Office, got the attention of ZDG journalists because of the tens of thousands of euros he had received in the recent years as donations from his relatives and parents at some family events. The investigation ‘Prosecutors Helped by Parents. 2018 Version’, published by ZdG on 29 June 2019, also contains evidence on this case, referring to Statements of Assets and Interests for 2018, 2017, 2015, 2014 and 2013, filed by Vladimir Moşneaga.

After this material was published in the press, the former prosecutor sent a prior request to the editorial offices, asking them to refute the ‘false and defamatory’ information, to apologise publicly and pay each a compensation of MDL 50,000 for non-pecuniary damages. Otherwise, Mosneaga states that he will file a lawsuit in order to „claim and restore the harmed right."

As an argument for his request, he claims that the article had a broad audience, both directly on ZdG website and on the other two portals, as well on social networks where it was shared and commented by Internet users, etc. The journalists’ actions ‘harmed my honor and dignity, and affected my private life by disseminating information about my divorce and the process of establishing my children's custody’, states the petitioner in his prior request. He also complains that ZdG placed his picture on the front page, with his parents’ houses in the background, and that journalists visited his parents. He  wonders how journalists found their address and claims that his parents felt intimidated by that visit. 

The three media outlets however regard the request, received on 19 July 2019, as ’overtly unsubstantiated’ and ‘lacking any grounds to fulfill the invoked requirements’. In their view, ‘the prior request does not refer to any circumstances that would prove the information be false or circumstances that would prove that the judgements are not based on sufficient facts’. At the same time, in their response to the prior request, the media outlets concerned recall that ‘no one may forbid or prevent the media from disseminating information of public interest within the limits of the law. Media has the duty to inform the audience on matters of public interest and perform journalistic investigations of such matters in accordance with its responsibilities’.

Note that ZdG has been investigating the situation in the justice system for a number of years, and the prosecutor featuring in the published material was not the only one to receive such ‘donations’. ‘Literally one in seven state accusers reported material aid in their Statements of Assets and Interests for 2018’, wrote the newspaper, stating that at least 92 of the 637 prosecutors employed in prosecution bodies received some monetary donations last year’. The situation resembles the one in 2017, says ZdG, when at least 90 prosecutors declared donations in their Statements of Assets and Interest.

The Independent Journalism Center provides legal aid to journalist involved in this case.