Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/10.3935/zpfz.76.1.3
Criminal Offences Against Honor and Reputation in Domestic Jurisprudence: Distinction per se or quaestio facti
Nevena Aljinović
; Fakultet za forenzičke znanosti, Sveučilište u Splitu, Split, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The Croatian legislator, through the establishment of positive law, has limited the scope of offences against honor and reputation to a binary framework, criminalizing only insult and defamation. The rights to honor and reputation are intrinsic determinants of dignity inherent in every human being; although often treated as synonyms, they differ fundamentally in the nature of their determinants, particularly in the value judgments or factual statements. This paper analyzes the normative regulation of criminal offences against honor and reputation, accompanied by a qualitative analysis of case law, with particular attention to the distinction between the value judgment, as a characteristic of insult, and the (false) factual statement as the essence of defamation. Unlike an untrue factual statement, which is subject to proof, a value judgment is not predicated on the provability of its claim but rather on its objective capacity to insult and thereby violate another’s honor, which judgment is always a quaestio facti. However, case law demonstrates that a value judgment, when derived from a factual substratum, in a way that clarifies or valorizes it, forms a whole with the factual assertion and is considered the latter. The paper further considers the protection of honor and reputation in the context of public and political activity, as well as the conditions under which the illegality of an insult committed in the public interest is excluded. Additionally, the court criteria for determining the qualification of accessibility of an insult to a larger number of persons and the institute of a counterclaim as an optional basis for exemption from punishment are also discussed. The paper employs a normative-dogmatic analysis of legal provisions, interprets relevant case law, and provides a theoretical overview of the doctrine. The aim of the paper is to expound case law in the context of normative determinants of verbal offenses against honor and reputation.
Ključne riječi
verbal offenses; insult; defamation; value judgment; false factual statements
Hrčak ID:
347243
URI
Datum izdavanja:
19.5.2026.
Posjeta: 0 *