October 29th,2007 Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of Mongolia has issued interpretations of provisions of the Law of Defamation in order to provide a uniform understanding and thus ensure the correct application of the legislation,

The interpretations apply to Articles 110 and 111 of the Mongolian Criminal Code and primarily involve legal definitions pertaining to a range of defamation terms, including “reputation”, “honor”, “insulting”, “libelous defamation” and “damage”.

Mongolian NGO Globe International is concerned that some interpretations are inadequate and could be detrimental to journalists, who have been targeted in the past in questionable defamation suits.

Globe lawyer Ganbold Davaakhuu said this was evident in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the term “reputation”, which the court has defined as an evaluation by others and by an individual themselves. Davaakhuu said a person’s “reputation” should not be open to subjective evaluation.

He said the revised definition of the term “libelous defamation” was similarly flawed. The court decreed that the term referred to “obviously untrue information, documents”, which Davaakhuu said had not been adequately explained and still left journalists open to defamation claims.  For translated edition of supreme court's explanation and Globe's laywer statements please click here