How journalists become defendants

The most recent typical example took place in Karaganda. A student wanted to earn money to pay for her education and took a job with  Dolphin water park, but she was not paid  for several months.The student told her story to  journalists of the e-karaganda news agency. They wrote and published an article about the situation the young lady got into entitled "Waterpark refuses to pay salary to  Karaganda inhabitant."

What did the owner of the water park, Zharyk Saryarka LLP do? Was it ashamed and paid the girl the money she had earned? Not at all. As is the way with these things LLP applied  to court and  accused the news agency of damaging its business reputation.

At the court hearings the plaintiff did not provide any evidence that the ppublished article somehow influenced  its business reputation.

The court questioned two witnesses who confirmed that they worked for the water park, they did not enter into any employment contracts or civil contracts. 

"They didn't even look at my identity card", one of the witnesses said. Several ex-employees of the waterpark told the same stories. Most of them were  17 years old teenagers.

After the second witness was questioned in court,  the plaintiff suddenly abandoned the claim.

The court granted that request. On September 18, 2020, the Specialized Interdistrict Economic Court of the Karaganda Region dismissed the claim of Zharyk Saryarka LLP against Creadom LLP, the owner of the e-karaganda news agency.

Unfortunately, amendments adopted to Civil Procedure Code in 2015, resulted in satisfying such requests. Cases are dismissed regardless of the  defendants opinion -  the court has no choice. It is a good loophole for unscrupulous plaintiffs: to file a groundless lawsuit, use court hearings to find out the arguments and the evidences of the defendant, to file a request to dismiss the case, to prepare for the court proceedings taking into account the information received at the hearings, and file the lawsuit agian. As of today, the case is dismissed, but the journalists are still at risk of the waterpark owner's lawsuit.