Štefan Harabin (source: sita)
Štefan Harabin, a former president of Slovakia's Supreme Court, former justice minister and failed two-time presidential candidate, is refusing to abide by a legally binding ruling by the Bratislava Regional Court, which has ordered him to apologise to the Slovak software company Eset for false and conspiratorial statements he made about it.
Eset, which is one of Slovakia's largest and most successful companies, filed the lawsuit in May 2019, alleging that Harabin had damaged its reputation by claiming falsely that it had influenced election results in Slovakia and collaborated with America's CIA spy agency.
"With a probability bordering on certainty, we know that even the votes in the elections are counted by Eset through its proxy system suppliers," Harabin wrote in a Facebook post in 2019.
He later claimed that the company acquired its assets "through corrupt and fraudulent means." In fact, Eset has been consistently profitable throughout its more than thirty years in business, and is among Slovakia's largest taxpayers.
Harabin continued: "That Eset, which financed the presidential campaign of [Zuzana] Čaputová, who was fraudulently registered with the Bar Association. That Eset, which undoubtedly collaborates with the CIA."
The court found in favour of Eset in December and gave Harabin three months to issue a public apology, but the former judge is now publicly questioning the verdict. He even accused the judges of alleged abuse of power, stating that “they will be stripped of their robes”.
Harabin claims Covid-19 rules hobbled his defence
Harabin argues that the court’s decision is unjust, claiming that during the Covid-19 pandemic he was denied the opportunity to defend himself properly. In April 2022 he refused to wear a face mask or respirator, as was required by law at the time. As a result, court security barred him from attending a hearing in the original case, which proceeded in his absence.
“I wasn’t even allowed into the court building to present my case,” Harabin contends, citing this incident as grounds for submitting an extraordinary legal remedy known as an appeal on points of law.
Judge Jakub Obert, who presided over the case in the first instance, stated in his ruling that Harabin had failed to substantiate the claims he had made on Facebook, or demonstrate any factual basis for them. Conversely, Eset successfully proved that Harabin’s statements were false and harmful to its reputation.
“The defendant had to be aware that his statements crossed a line, especially those alleging corrupt and fraudulent assets owned by Eset,” Obert remarked. He further emphasised that Harabin, as a former chief justice of the Supreme Court and justice minister, was fully aware of the consequences of making baseless accusations.
Blaha also saw connections with the CIA
Eset has faced similar accusations from other public figures, such as Ľuboš Blaha, a leading figure in Prime Minister Robert Fico's Smer party who is now an MEP; he alleged connections between the company and the CIA, as well as claiming it played a role in the presidential election campaigns of Zuzana Čaputová and Andrej Kiska.
While Harabin was found liable in court, the lawsuit against Blaha was dismissed by the Bratislava District Court. The judge in that case argued that Blaha, as a politician, enjoys “a privileged position concerning freedom of speech,” even though his statements relied on conspiratorial sources. (The same judge recently issued an order blocking the Denník N daily from describing online commentator Daniel Bombic as an 'extremist', despite Bombic's record of racist and anti-Semitic comments and his repeated use of a 'white power' symbol in photographs.) However, the verdict in Blaha's case is not yet final and is subject to review by a higher court.
Meanwhile, Harabin is also facing further charges over his controversial social media statements, specifically for endorsing criminal acts and inciting hatred. He faces up to three years in prison for publicly supporting Russia’s actions in Ukraine. The trial is scheduled to begin in late January 2025 at the Specialised Criminal Court.
