
{"id":2926,"date":"2016-09-13T06:04:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T04:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=2926\/"},"modified":"2017-01-20T20:20:21","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T20:20:21","slug":"court-acquits-student-of-defamation-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/court-acquits-student-of-defamation-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Court acquits student of defamation charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I am pleased, but not surprised ,&#8221; says Kristian Hegaard after a district court in Helsing\u00f8r has acquitted him.<\/p>\n<p>He had been accused by his teacher, lecturer Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen, of defamation because he had sent a complaint about the teaching of Tax Law to the university.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not surprised, because my complaint had been accommodated by the university, and because many students also supported the appeal and declared their agreement with it. And the student ambassador also expressed that it was an appropriate complaint,&#8221; says Kristian Hegaard.<\/p>\n<h2>Court took no position on groups issue<\/h2>\n<p>The court acquitted Kristian Hegaard because his complaint about the lack of group work in Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen&#8217;s teaching was of such a &#8216;trivial nature&#8217; that it could not be considered defamation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"dme-external-teaser dme-external-teaser-3\">\n<div class=\"image\">\n<div class=\"dme-image dme-image-center dme-image-preset-0\"><a href=\"http:\/\/universitetsavisen.dk\/node\/34948\" title=\"\"><picture><img src=\"\/old_files\/retssag3_0.jpg\" class=\"\"  decoding=\"async\"  alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"title\">\n<div class=\"label\">L\u00e6s mere:<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/universitetsavisen.dk\/node\/34948\">Court report: The name on the list<\/a>  <\/div>\n<div class=\"teaser_text\">\n          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;The Court finds that the statement is of a completely trivial nature. The statement is neither in itself, nor in view of the circumstances under which it was made, capable of dishonouring Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen or reducing Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen esteem in the eyes of his fellow citizens. There is therefore no reason for a defamation charge referring to penal code \u00a7267 that may be canceled pursuant to penal code \u00a7 273. Kristian Hegaard is therefore acquitted of the charges,\u201d it said in the court judgement, as quoted in <em>Frederiksborg Amtsavis<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The court did not consider whether groups were formed or not.<\/p>\n<p>As a consequence of the ruling, Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen is to pay trial expenses of DKK 31,250.<\/p>\n<p>To Uniavisen, Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen says that \u201cthe court emphasizes that the statement is too trivial to fall under the criminal code clauses on defamation. But that presupposes that groups were, in fact, set up.  So Hegaard\u2019s statements are not in accordance with the truth. I still think that a teacher should stand up to misrepresentations in complaints cases. I will therefore either appeal the case to a higher court, or start a case with the ombudsman public advocate. The case is not closed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"dme-external-teaser dme-external-teaser-3\">\n<div class=\"image\">\n<div class=\"dme-image dme-image-center dme-image-preset-0\"><a href=\"http:\/\/universitetsavisen.dk\/node\/34793\" title=\"\"><picture><img src=\"\/old_files\/hegaard_1000pix_0.jpg\" class=\"\"  decoding=\"async\"  alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"title\">\n<div class=\"label\">L\u00e6s mere:<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/universitetsavisen.dk\/node\/34793\">Lecturer takes student to court after teaching complaint<\/a>  <\/div>\n<div class=\"teaser_text\">\n          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The University&#8217;s management is also criticized for its handling of the affair by Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The case has exhibited the university&#8217;s passivity and lack of dialogue when such a case arises. This case shows the university\u2019s incompetence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Student Council: Students should not be afraid to complain<\/h2>\n<p>Kristian Hegaard sees the ruling as important in that it ensures students\u2019 rights to complain in the future. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With the acquittal, it is now blindingly obvious that you can complain about your teaching without having to fear a lawsuit,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p>The Student Council also says that the acquittal is a matter of principle:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is good that he has been acquitted as students should not be afraid to complain about their teaching. It is important that students dare take a stand on their study programmes and on their education,&#8221; says chairman Malou Astrup Clemmesen adding:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I find it unfortunate that the teacher has chosen to pursue a lawsuit instead of recognizing that students have an active role in making teaching better and that the students&#8217; contributions can lead to a better university.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>uni-avis@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Law student Kristian Hegaard\u2019s complaint about the teaching in Tax Law was so &#8216;trivial&#8217;, that it cannot be considered defamation. Ruling from the Helsing\u00f8r district court<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":2927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","expression-news_article"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Court acquits student of defamation charge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/court-acquits-student-of-defamation-charge\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court acquits student of defamation charge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Law student Kristian Hegaard\u2019s complaint about the teaching in Tax Law was so &#039;trivial&#039;, that it cannot be considered defamation. 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student Kristian Hegaard\u2019s complaint about the teaching in Tax Law was so 'trivial', that it cannot be considered defamation. Ruling from the Helsing\u00f8r district court","use_post_excerpt":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":false,"contributors":[{"use_registered_user":false,"user":false,"contributor_name":"SOFIE M. HANSEN","contributor_title":"&nbsp;","contributor_image":false}]},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>&#8220;I am pleased, but not surprised ,&#8221; says Kristian Hegaard after a district court in Helsing\u00f8r has acquitted him.<\/p>\n<p>He had been accused by his teacher, lecturer Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen, of defamation because he had sent a complaint about the teaching of Tax Law to the university.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not surprised, because my complaint had been accommodated by the university, and because many students also supported the appeal and declared their agreement with it. And the student ambassador also expressed that it was an appropriate complaint,&#8221; says Kristian Hegaard.<\/p>\n<h2>Court took no position on groups issue<\/h2>\n<p>The court acquitted Kristian Hegaard because his complaint about the lack of group work in Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen&#8217;s teaching was of such a &#8216;trivial nature&#8217; that it could not be considered defamation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"dme-external-teaser dme-external-teaser-3\">\n<div class=\"image\">\n<div class=\"dme-image dme-image-center dme-image-preset-0\"><a href=\"http:\/\/universitetsavisen.dk\/node\/34948\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/old_files\/retssag3_0.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"title\">\n<div class=\"label\">L\u00e6s mere:<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/universitetsavisen.dk\/node\/34948\">Court report: The name on the list<\/a>  <\/div>\n<div class=\"teaser_text\">\n          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;The Court finds that the statement is of a completely trivial nature. The statement is neither in itself, nor in view of the circumstances under which it was made, capable of dishonouring Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen or reducing Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen esteem in the eyes of his fellow citizens. There is therefore no reason for a defamation charge referring to penal code \u00a7267 that may be canceled pursuant to penal code \u00a7 273. Kristian Hegaard is therefore acquitted of the charges,\u201d it said in the court judgement, as quoted in <em>Frederiksborg Amtsavis<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The court did not consider whether groups were formed or not.<\/p>\n<p>As a consequence of the ruling, Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen is to pay trial expenses of DKK 31,250.<\/p>\n<p>To Uniavisen, Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen says that \u201cthe court emphasizes that the statement is too trivial to fall under the criminal code clauses on defamation. But that presupposes that groups were, in fact, set up.  So Hegaard\u2019s statements are not in accordance with the truth. I still think that a teacher should stand up to misrepresentations in complaints cases. I will therefore either appeal the case to a higher court, or start a case with the ombudsman public advocate. The case is not closed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"dme-external-teaser dme-external-teaser-3\">\n<div class=\"image\">\n<div class=\"dme-image dme-image-center dme-image-preset-0\"><a href=\"http:\/\/universitetsavisen.dk\/node\/34793\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/old_files\/hegaard_1000pix_0.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"title\">\n<div class=\"label\">L\u00e6s mere:<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/universitetsavisen.dk\/node\/34793\">Lecturer takes student to court after teaching complaint<\/a>  <\/div>\n<div class=\"teaser_text\">\n          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The University&#8217;s management is also criticized for its handling of the affair by Michael Bj\u00f8rn Hansen:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The case has exhibited the university&#8217;s passivity and lack of dialogue when such a case arises. This case shows the university\u2019s incompetence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Student Council: Students should not be afraid to complain<\/h2>\n<p>Kristian Hegaard sees the ruling as important in that it ensures students\u2019 rights to complain in the future. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With the acquittal, it is now blindingly obvious that you can complain about your teaching without having to fear a lawsuit,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p>The Student Council also says that the acquittal is a matter of principle:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is good that he has been acquitted as students should not be afraid to complain about their teaching. It is important that students dare take a stand on their study programmes and on their education,&#8221; says chairman Malou Astrup Clemmesen adding:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I find it unfortunate that the teacher has chosen to pursue a lawsuit instead of recognizing that students have an active role in making teaching better and that the students&#8217; contributions can lead to a better university.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>uni-avis@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":42,"name":"Education","slug":"education","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":42,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":661,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11488,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/kristian-hegaard2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31041,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926\/revisions\/31041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}