Court Orders MEP Milan M. to Pay Another €27,000 in Doctor Sabaka Case

Trnava/Bratislava, 22 January (TASR) - Poprad District Court issued another ruling last December in the case of a personality protection lawsuit filed by infectologist Peter Sabaka against MEP Milan M. of the Republic party (name abbreviated due to legal reasons), TASR was told by Ivana Petrufova, spokesperson for Presov Regional Court and the district courts within its jurisdiction. In a ruling that is not yet final, the court ordered Milan M. to compensate the plaintiff for non-pecuniary damages in the amount of €27,000. The district court decided on the lawsuit on 5 December 2025, following an earlier first-instance ruling of 25 August 2023 in conjunction with a judgment of Presov Region Court of 29 July 2025. "The defendant was ordered, within 48 hours of publishing a post containing an apology, to publish another post on his social media profile," the spokesperson explained. The court further ordered Milan M. to upload a personal apology in an audiovisual form with specified content and to permanently place it on his social media profile, as well as to publish a written apology to the plaintiff in specific daily newspapers. The district court also ordered the defendant to compensate Sabaka for non-pecuniary damages to the tune of €27,000 and awarded the plaintiff full reimbursement of legal costs, amounting to 100 percent of the granted compensation. "This district court ruling is not final. The defendant has filed an appeal, and after the necessary procedural steps the case will be submitted to the appellate court for appeal proceedings and a decision," added Petrufova. However, a district court ruling from August 2023 is final. In conjunction with the regional court judgment of July 2025, it ordered Milan M. to permanently delete specified posts and all related text comments from his social media profile. Milan M. was also ordered to pay the plaintiff non-pecuniary damages of €15,000. "The court further ordered the defendant to publish a written apology addressed to the plaintiff on his social media profile, using the same font and font size as the original posts, three times in succession at intervals of three weeks," said Petrufova regarding the earlier final verdict. Milan M. criticised Sabaka during the Covid-19 pandemic in several posts and videos published on social media, referring among other things to "sadistic doctors" and "childish blackmail". mf/df