After a lengthy legal battle, Prime Minister Robert Fico requested on Tuesday, March 12, that his lawyer withdraw the lawsuit concerning the Sme daily’s cartoonist, Martin ‘Shooty’ Šútovec, whom he sued over a political cartoon from 2009.
The cartoon depicted Fico with a physician who is telling him that he cannot possibly be suffering from back pain because he has no spine. At that time, Fico was reported to have been experiencing back pain, which caused him to cancel a business trip. Fico then sued the cartoonist, demanding an apology and €33,000 in damages, Sme wrote in its Wednesday, March 13 issue. In its verdict, the court stated that since Fico was a publicly-known person serving as prime minister and chairman of the strongest political party, he was “obliged to bear a greater amount of criticism”, Sme reported. The Prime Minister withdrew his lawsuit after he succeeded with appealing the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court returned the case to the regional court due to procedural flaws.
(Source: Sme)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
