Responsibility for humiliation of honor and dignity

In today’s world, the issue of liability for insulting the honor and dignity of individuals is quite common.

Ukrainian legislation states that every citizen has the right to respect his honor and dignity, as this is enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine.

However, not every citizen of Ukraine knows how to bring guilty persons to justice and protect their legal rights. What shows the relevance of the chosen topic for today.

And therefore, in this article, we will talk about what kind of responsibility exists for humiliating the honor and dignity of a natural person.

What is the concept of honor and dignity of a natural person?

The current Ukrainian normative legal acts do not contain specific definitions of the honor and dignity of a natural person, since these are essentially evaluation categories from the point of view of the moral norms of society as a whole. However, we will still try to define these concepts.

Thus, the dignity of a natural person should be understood as the recognition of his unique value among other citizens in the country and the manifestation of respect for his individual personality.

The honor of a natural person should be understood as the moral and ethical qualities of a citizen, which are manifested in keeping one’s own words, responsible behavior and the ability to defend one’s beliefs and values. Also, honor is associated with an individual’s awareness of his own importance in a particular society and the recognition of this importance by other people.

What is the responsibility for humiliating honor and dignity in Ukraine?

From the analysis of the provisions of Art. 94, 277 of the Central Criminal Code, it can be concluded that a natural person whose personal non-property rights were violated as a result of the humiliation of his honor and dignity due to the dissemination of false information, can provide an answer or refute this information.

Information that does not correspond to valid facts and circumstances, but on the contrary distorts them, thus forming false data, is considered unreliable.

So, we can say that a natural person can protect his honor and dignity in the following ways, namely:

• An intangible way of protecting one’s legal rights– this should include a refutation of inaccurate information, as well as the possibility of providing an answer. That is, an injured individual, whose honor and dignity were violated in connection with the publication of false information, usually turns to the source of dissemination of such data with a demand to refute the false information (in the vast majority, together with the refutation, the apology of the violator is also published);
• A material way of protecting one’s legal rights– obtaining compensation for material damages and moral damage due to humiliation of the honor and dignity of a person.

Thus, responsibility for humiliating the honor and dignity of a citizen in Ukraine involves a person’s appeal to the judicial authorities with a claim for rebuttal providing false information and compensation for damages or moral damage. That is, it is a civil-legal type of responsibility.

If your honor and dignity have been violated and you want to protect it, then in this case contact the law office “Prikhodko and partners”.

The company’s lawyers perfectly understand the problems of this issue, and therefore will be able to provide the firm’s clients with appropriate legal support at all stages of protecting the honor and dignity of an individual. Do not delay and come to us for a consultation!