POLAND - "Everyone has the right to the protection of their dignity and private life,' said Judge Urszula Chmielewska, explaining the ruling. "Everyone has to right to live a normal life in society and for their sexual orientation to remain their private business. The word 'faggot' is offensive and the context in which defendant Anna S. used it served to offend her neighbour," said the judge.
Last year, in a grocery in Wolin (a town with a population of 5,000 in the Zachodniopomorskie province), in the presence of other customers, the woman said about her neighbour, Ryszard Giersz, aged 25, "Look, a faggot's brought himself another faggot." Subsequently, according to the case files, she offended him on many other occasions, saying, for instance, that she "saw the faggots going to the park for a fuck."
The court ordered Anna S. yesterday to stop violating Ryszard Giersz's personal rights, that is, his freedom, dignity, intimate life and good name. She is not allowed to use the word 'faggot' towards Mr Giersz and his partner or comment on their intimate life or sexual orientation in public.
The judge agreed for the defendant to pay PLN 15,000 in damages, as originally demanded by the plaintiff. Anna S. will also pay PLN 4,000 in court fees.
"Compared with other personal rights violation cases, this amount is not particularly high," said the judge. "The defendant has to feel that the penalty is severe. It is not only to compensate the plaintiff for the harm that has been done to him, but, above all, to cause the defendant to change her behaviour."
The defendant maintained throughout the trial that she was innocent.
"All the witnesses lied," she said during yesterday's session. "It was the complainant who offended me, threw all kind of objects at me from his window. I'm depressed because of him and have to go into therapy."
Ryszard Giersz had tears in his eyes when the judge read out the ruling. He received congratulations from the trial's observers, including activists of the gay-and-lesbian rights organisation Campaign Against Homophobia.
"We won!" he told his partner, Tomasz, who had from the outset supported him, though without appearing in court. "We did it. There is justice, after all."
He told the press, "I'm very happy. I'm a normal person and I just want to live with my partner. The last half-year was excruciating. I hope S. finally stops interfering with my life and offending me at every step. Perhaps we'll manage to move out to a larger flat. Then we'll no longer have to meet this lady."
The plaintiff is happy not only because of the ruling but also because the case was brought to light.
"I didn't regret for a single moment that I had decided to go to court,' he says. 'I hope this verdict makes people more tolerant and think twice before they offend someone who is simply different from them."
Mr Giersz hasn't decided yet what he will do with the money. He will think about this with his relatives (he lives with his mother, siblings, and his partner in an old two-bedroom flat). They are thinking about donating at least part of it to charity.
Anna S. left the courtroom angry. "I won't comment on the ruling," she said over her shoulder. "I don't feel guilty, just cheated. And for an unemployed person on benefits 15,000 is a huge amount."
The ruling is not legally valid and the defence said it would appeal.
The precedential case came up before the court in February this year. The incident at the grocery shop triggered off, as Mr Giersz's attorney, Agnieszka Stach, called it, an "avalanche of hatred." The homosexual couple were called names on the street, thrown tomatoes and stones at. Ms Giersz had to change his job. Recently a stranger warned him that if he won the case, he would "smell flowers from underneath."
According to Campaign Against Homophobia, Mr Giersz's case is the first case in Poland where a homosexual person decided to pursue their rights in a court of law so openly.
"This is a very important ruling for us," said Robert Biedro of the CAH. "It was a fight for dignity, not for money. And not only this one man's but the dignity of all homosexuals. We are grateful to him for his courage. For deciding to make his face public and show everyone that there's been enough offending. Offensive treatment of gays and lesbians is common in Poland, but I believe that now, when the court has stopped to treat us as second-rate citizens, so will the rest of society."
from Gazeta
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