Anatomy of a SLAPP lawsuit - how the powerful individual who sued RTV journalist Predrag Ćurčija owed him about one million dinars in court costs.

Thus, Radio-Television Vojvodina journalist Predrag Ćurčija speaks to UNS about the SLAPP lawsuit filed against him ten years ago by the Vojvodina businessman Vladimir Vrbaški.

Although the journalist, editor, and media were collectively vindicated in 2024 by the ruling of the Appellate Court, they have yet to be reimbursed for the significant costs incurred, including a damage claim amounting to 10 million dinars.

This is a story about an exhausting eight-year process that began during the active tenure of RTV correspondent Ćurčija and concluded when he retired. It was the only trial this experienced journalist faced in his career.

Act I – the call of citizens to the journalist they trust

In May 2016, Ćurčija was the head of RTV's newsroom in Sombor. He reported on daily events, produced radio reports, investigated issues faced by citizens, and created segments. It was entirely normal for him to respond to a call from residents of the Prva uprava neighborhood in the small town of Gakovo. They told him they had no electricity or water, despite paying all their bills punctually.

“It turned out that the company ‘Graničar’, which managed the property, had stopped forwarding the money that the residents were paying for municipal services. They said, ‘We have problems with the new owner named Vladimir Vrbaški,’ and I wondered how he could be the new owner when it comes to state land,” recalls Ćurčija.

A few days after the phone call, Ćurčija's segment on the issues faced by the Gakovo residents aired on RTV.

In the TV report, the interviewees mentioned Vladimir Vrbaški and the company Graničar, while the journalist noted that he was “known for his company having usurped state land.”

Since the segment included statements from citizens about Vrbaški, the journalist attempted multiple times to contact him. Vrbaški did not respond, but his lawyer did.

Without answers to his questions, Ćurčija recounted, he received an email stating: “We will sue you.”

Act II – dozens of trips from Odžaci to Belgrade

The lawsuit indeed arrived, shortly after the segment aired. Vrbaški sued RTV, the then editor Marijana Jović Lainović, and journalist Predrag Ćurčija, seeking damages of ten million dinars for “defamation and emotional distress.”

Far more than the amount that could typically be awarded, says UNS lawyer Nenad Krajnović, who has defended Ćurčija from the beginning.

“The lawsuit was structured in such a way that the factual situation became complicated. In my opinion, it was clear that the plaintiff's intention was not to seek damages for so-called emotional distress, but merely to cause financial harm – both to the media and to the defendant journalist,” says Krajnović.

What followed, Ćurčija describes today as “torment.” Each hearing required a trip of 300 kilometers, the round trip distance from Odžaci to Belgrade, where Ćurčija waited for Vrbaški to appear in court.

“For years he did not attend hearings. This was supposedly due to health reasons or other obligations. Each visit required a pointless journey for the representatives and attorneys of the parties to the Higher Court in Belgrade, only to find that the plaintiff could not attend the trial he himself initiated,” Krajnović explains.

The process was thus both temporally and financially exhausting for both Ćurčija and RTV.

Each hearing, Krajnović explains, involved at least three lawyers with travel expenses, in relation to a lawsuit valued at 10 million dinars.

“At that time, the defendant, in addition to money, was also spending their time preparing for the trial and traveling to another city for the hearing, and during that time they were not able to perform their primary journalistic work. This lawsuit was initiated and conducted as a classic example of a SLAPP lawsuit,” says Krajnović.

There were three to four hearings held each year. Over eight years – around thirty trips to Belgrade, says Ćurčija.

Each time he drove his own car, paying for parking and gas. He estimates that he spent over a thousand euros just on travel and associated costs.

“I remember asking the judge: ‘Excuse me, what is going on here? I come every time from Odžaci, and he simply does not show up,’” says Ćurčija.

Act III – Ćurčija found justice, but not the reimbursement of legal costs

After eight years, a first-instance verdict arrived that was unfavorable for the defendant journalist and RTV.

The judge explained that the journalist acted with due journalistic care but nonetheless insinuated that the plaintiff was a land usurper, and therefore the defendants were required to jointly pay 30,000 dinars to Vrbaški.

“The court qualified the presentation of facts that were proven to be true as the journalist's opinion,” said Krajnović at the time.

A subsequent appeal required a new, high fee to be paid, given that the claim amounted to ten million dinars.

At the end of 2024, the Appellate Court in Belgrade decided differently, ruling in favor of the journalist and the media instead of the businessman, ordering the defendants to reimburse the costs of the proceedings.

“When I received that verdict, I saw that there are indeed judges and legal professionals in this country who refer to international practices. The way I was acquitted shows that the court can really function as it should. I believe that the series of protests organized at that time also contributed to that courageous decision,” said Ćurčija.

With interest and enforcement costs, the total reimbursement of costs, Ćurčija and Krajnović say, should amount to one million dinars.

Just when they believed everything was over and that they would recover their litigation costs, Vrbaški, as Krajnović states, went abroad and withdrew money from the country. Allegedly, Krajnović says, he has no other assets.

“Now, after more than eight years of incurring costs, traveling to trials, when Ćurčija should collect his costs from the litigation process, he has only additional costs of paying an executor who has nothing from which to recover the claims of the defendants,” says Krajnović.

Nonetheless, for Ćurčija, even after everything, the most important thing is that justice has been served.

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Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) are legal actions initiated or conducted as a means of harassing or intimidating journalists, according to the definition by the Council of Europe.

According to this perspective, they aim to prevent, restrict, or punish free expression on matters of public interest and to realize rights related to public participation. They are initiated by, as stated in the European Union Directive, powerful and influential actors.

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For him, this was the first trial in his journalistic career and it was the first time he heard the term SLAPP, which was not as common at the time of the lawsuit as it is today.

“At first, I thought it was a classic story about a powerful person oppressing the poor. However, colleagues who follow international cases told me: ‘Trust me, this is a classic. A classic intimidation tactic against journalists to get them to back off from the topic.’”

He was not backed off. But the residents of Prva uprava in Gakovo, who were cut off from electricity and water, no longer live there today.

“The whole case is a strange story that will probably never receive the epilogue it deserves in this country,” says Ćurčija.

Source: UNS