Categories of Abuse of the Right and Inconsistent Behavior in the Context of Defamation Disputes

Over the past two decades, there has been a noticeable strengthening of the official reliance of Russian courts on philosophical concepts, among which the notion of good faith occupies a prominent position. The abuse of the right is one of the most intriguing manifestations of bad faith that merits investigation. Closely related to good faith is another ethical legal concept — inconsistent behavior — which is deemed flawed specifically in its manifestation of bad faith. To date, a comprehensive analysis of defamation and the judicial protection against it through the lens of these terms has not been conducted in domestic civil law scholarship. This study evaluates the significance of the outlined categories for defamation law and defines the relationship between defamation and the phenomena they denote. Equating the abuse of the right with defamation, or understanding them as categories of genus and species respectively, is erroneous. From the perspective of legal theory, these concepts do not intersect. Defamation is a tort and should not be classified as an act of abuse of the right (particularly harassment), as the latter entails a legally impeccable formal exercise of the right that becomes flawed through the distortion of its purpose and its harmfulness. However, the expression of a subjective opinion can constitute an abuse of rights. If one adheres to the classical understanding of inconsistent behavior as a series of lawful yet inconsistent actions that cause harm to others, defamation, being an unlawful act, is not encompassed by the category of inconsistent behavior. Meanwhile, in judicial practice, the inconsistency of plaintiffs’ positions in defamation disputes and the illogical procedural conduct of litigants regarding defamation are periodically discussed.

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