The Bierwirt, who is now in custody on suspicion of murder of his partner, failed, according to the “Presse” (Monday edition), with an injunction against the politician. After Maurer got obscene emails, she called the beer host “asshole”. According to a final judgment by the Vienna Regional Court, she was allowed to do so.
The name is covered by the right to freedom of expression, the Josefstadt district court had already dismissed the beer innkeeper’s suit and referred to the legendary “idiot case”: According to the European Court of Human Rights, freedom of expression allowed a journalist to report the then FPÖ boss Jörg Haider ( 1950-2008) called an idiot because he contradicted himself in a speech.
“Massive criticism is also permissible”
Both offenders had become indignant before the statement, argued the district court. At the end of May 2018, Maurer had received obscene messages from the beer host’s Facebook account. The beer keeper’s argument that these messages did not come from him and that everyone in the bar could use the computer was not accepted by the court. The landlord had also made vulgar comments in the pending proceedings, it said.
The regional court has now confirmed the verdict: Up to the limit of the excess of valuation, “massive, deeply debilitating criticism and exaggerated formulations based on concrete facts may be permissible,” the “press” quoted as saying.
Maurer had made the obscene messages public on Twitter and named the landlord, whereupon he filed a criminal private lawsuit against Maurer for defamation. In February he surprisingly withdrew it, whereupon the green club boss was legally acquitted. In the civil courts, the beer pub owner Maurer sued for an insult to honor – she was no longer allowed to call him an “asshole”. After her first reaction on Twitter, Maurer had also done this in an individual message to the predecessor of the Bierwirt.
