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According to M. Vainorius, this story was developed in December 2019, when he wrote the author’s article. “Sword of Damocles on the head of the head of the municipal company”.
“The fact is that the Street Lighting company wanted to fire CEO Dangir Alexandrov, possibly due to non-transparent public procurement. I started to raise documents – said Monsieur Vainorius.
– It turned out that the main participant in public procurement was a company whose shareholder is the son of the main financier. The purchases were made while she was working. The company bought poles, lamps, cables, everything necessary from said son. As it turned out, at a price three to four times higher than the market. There were also more cases of purchase from the employee’s brother, cohabitants. It was a normal scheme. “
After this post, he felt uncomfortable.
Monsieur Vainorius was reported to the Office of the Inspector of Journalistic Ethics regarding the named persons.
There have been many and varied complaints, some of which have not been addressed until now.
The Office ruled that an offense had been committed because it would have been sufficient to mention the person in the abstract, without mentioning the name and relationship. It is supposed to be redundant information.
“I was reprimanded. I can live with him for a hundred years, but I have seen a terrible precedent for Lithuanian journalism here. I applied to the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court, I went to the Vilnius court to explain the situation orally, without a lawyer.
Unfortunately, we lost last November. We complained to the SACL and everything remained the same. The case was reviewed in writing as soon as the date was set, which was a surprise to me, ”commented the editor.
They reprimanded me. I can live with him for a hundred years, but I have seen a terrible precedent for Lithuanian journalism here.
The portal “Atvira Klaipėda” created by M. Vainorius lives on the funds of the sponsors, receives income from the advertising of cultural projects, so the legal costs incurred, about 4,400 euros, were painful.
The lawyer portal did not hire, it defended itself, as it affirmed, without having the resources to do so.
After this decision, M.Vainorius decided that the portal will no longer continue its mission and will change its details.
On Thursday morning, he published an obituary for a portal that he had created himself.
Photo from “Open Klaipeda” / M.Vainorius and the portal created by him
The editor says he was surprised by such a court decision, but whoever it is will have to respect it.
“The reason for the court was that the named person and the company that participates in the public procurement, not the shareholder, but the final beneficiary is the shareholder, not the company. This man, the sole shareholder, surprised Monsieur Vainorius.
– The perception is this: if you don’t want publicity, sell cables to private companies, but if you fly into public money, how can restrictions be imposed on who uses the money? It is a 100 percent municipal company, and it is enough to know that that company gained all the other redundant information. “
Absurd vadina
“The so-called retention of private data reaches new frontiers, when journalists cannot even mention the names of people with non-transparent personal connections, despite the fact that these people use taxpayers’ money in non-transparent ways.
Defending a journalist’s right to work in court is difficult and very expensive. The editor of “Open Klaipeda” was convinced of this in public.
I hope that the amendments to the law will be registered in the Seimas as soon as possible, which would prevent those actors who fundamentally deceive us under the guise of pseudo-protection of privacy ”, Dainius Radzevičius, president of the Union of Journalists of Lithuania, soon reacted to social networks.
He had to obtain the consent of the employer.
Atvira Klaipėda appealed to the court against the decision of the Inspector of Journalistic Ethics, which stated that “the purpose of the publication could have been achieved without revealing the applicant’s personal data, name and information about the applicant’s relationship company). surplus ‘.
The inspector ruled that in the absence of a condition confirming legality, that is, the consent of the businessman who had written the complaint, the personal data had been illegally disclosed in the media.
Atvira Klaipėda appealed this decision to the court. However, at the end of 2020, the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court (VADT) dismissed the appeal. Its decision establishes that an entrepreneur “cannot be considered a public person due to the participation of his company in public procurement.”
“A public person is one whose decisions have a real impact on society, they are important to society,” the court stressed.
VADT agreed that the purpose of the publication could have been achieved without disclosing the details of the third party in question, without naming them, and the information about their relationship is redundant.
Atvira Klaipėda appealed this decision to the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (SACL), but on Wednesday decided to reject Atviros Klaipėda’s appeal.
The panel of three judges highlighted that the record confirms that the public procurement referred to in the publication involved a private legal person whose shareholder is the businessman and not the businessman himself. Furthermore, according to the judges, the company itself does not provide public services.
The judges also pointed out that the author of the article did not provide information that he had obtained permission from the businessman to publish his name and relationship.
“The publication does not announce acts contrary to the law or good customs or actions contrary to the rules of conduct accepted by society, which may be disclosed without the consent of the employer. It cannot be deduced from the content of the publication that (the entrepreneur – aut. Past.), As a private person, all the private data satisfied the public interest. According to the panel of judges, the purpose of the publication could have been achieved without revealing the data of the third party in question, ”the panel of judges decided.
This order is not subject to appeal.
The news soon spread on social media and journalists called the decision silent in the media.
“It is sad to read the obituaries of colleagues in the morning, it is even sadder to see such court decisions.
Silenced media is a bad sign in a country where nepotism and corruption are not an unknown planet, to put it mildly, ”wrote Agnė Bukartaitė, a journalist who lives in the port city.
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