Lawyer Wins BD400 Over Social Media Insults

TDT | Manama | Email : online@newsofbahrain.com

Two remarks on social media, ‘a disgrace to the legal profession’ and ‘your understanding is slow’, have cost a Bahraini man BD400 after a court ruled that a lawyer he insulted online was owed damages for the harm to her dignity.

The Lower Civil Court ordered him to pay the sum to a Bahraini lawyer after finding that the posts had caused moral harm. The ruling came after an earlier criminal order in which he was fined BD20 for public insult, a penalty he paid without filing an objection.

Lawyer Zahraa Fardan said the Public Prosecution had accused the man of using words against the lawyer that harmed her honour and standing, without linking her to any named act. She said the prosecution then issued a criminal order fining him BD20 and, once he paid it without objecting, the order became final.

That point mattered in the civil case. The court said the criminal order had already settled the shared ground between the two cases, including the legal nature of the act and the fact that it was carried out by the defendant. With that in place, the civil court said it was bound by the finding of fault and could not go over the same point again.

In its ruling, the court said it had reviewed the posts filed in the case and found that the man had described the lawyer as ‘a disgrace to the legal profession’ and said her understanding was slow. It found that those remarks caused moral harm affecting her feelings and dignity.

The court said the needed elements of tort liability were all in place: fault, harm and the link between the two. On that basis, it ordered the defendant to pay BD400 as redress for the moral harm suffered by the lawyer.