Two cases of a rural teacher

Both the civil and criminal proceedings against the resident of the village of Miyauly, teacher Aygul Muksanova finished in the Kyzylkoginsky District Court of Atyrau Oblast with a two-day difference. It is remarkable that in both cases the accuser, the accused, the reason for the legal arguments and even the judge turned out to be the same.

The reason for the conflict was the post of A. Muksanova on Facebook, in which she complained about the quality of food in the school cafeteria, but did not indicate who was the food supplier. The post was illustrated with photos taken on October 19th.

The food supplier, an independed entrepreneur, Meruert Nurmagambetova, considered that the soical network post humiliated  her honor, dignity and business reputation and demanded to declare the information to be untrue, refute it and collect from A. Muksanova 2768900 tenge as compensation for emotional distress. When Aigul refused to sign the settlement agreement proposed by the plaintiff, the businesswoman accused the teacher of defamation using social networks (part 2 of article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan stipulating punishment ranging from a fine to two years in prison).

On December 25, judge A. Dosmagambetova ruled in a civil case: to  satisfy the lawsuit partially, to oblige A. Muksanova to refute the information by making her apologize and collect 30 thousand tenge from her as compensation of emotinal distress of the plaintiff N. Nurmagambetova. The plaintiff should be charged 24,627 tenge of stamp duty.

On December 27, Judge A. Dosmagambetova issued a verdict for the same conflict: to acquit Aygul Muksanova for lack of corpus delicti.

 "Adil soz" comments: In accordance with the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code, a judge considering a civil case should suspend the hearings until the end of the criminal case hearings. The court did not do this, although both cases were heard by the same judge, and she could not be unaware that the hearings of the criminal case had begun.The Civil Code does not provide such a type of civil liability as an apology. The court is obliged to strictly observe the law and is not entitled to invent new types of civil liability. Art. 143 of the Civil Code and the Law “On Mass Media” stipulate only two types of civil liability for disseminating information that contradicts the reality and discredits someone’s honor, dignity, and business reputation: publication of a refutation or publication of a free answer. The fact that the stamp duty was collected by a court decision may mean that the lawsuit was accepted for hearings without a paid state fee, although the law provides the opposite: the statement of claim must be accepted together with a receipt for stamp duty payment. The law provides cases when the court is entitled to provide the plaintiff  with the opportunity to pay the stamp duty later, but in this case the court is obliged to issue a delay payment permission to the plaintiff. We studied the case file on the website of the Supreme Court, and did not find such a  permission.