Communicated on 26 April 2017
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 26933/15
Ranko BON
against Croatia
lodged on 30 May 2015
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Ranko Bon, is a Croatian and British national who was born in 1946 and lives in Motovun. He is represented before the Court by Mr V. Ramadanović, a lawyer practising in Zagreb.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant is an environmental activist, the president of the Motovun section of the Green Party. At a round table organised by the National Forum for the Environment entitled “Together against Seizure – How to Proceed against the Law on Golf Courses”, held in the Centre for Journalists in Zagreb on 26 March 2009 in front of an audience of about fifty people, the applicant gave a presentation in which he spoke about his return to Motovun after thirty-four years of living abroad, and asserted that there was a surplus of instruments of power in the town, a democratic deficit, and that everything was happening in the dark, behind closed doors, far from the eyes of the public. In that context, he also said that the head of the Motovun Municipality, S.V., had been acting like a “real cockroach”.
The applicant’s speech was recorded without his consent or knowledge and placed on the Internet, also without his consent.
Between 31 October 2010 and 24 June 2009 S.V. lodged three criminal complaints against the applicant with the Pazin Municipal Court in relation to charges of libel and insult. On 2 March 2010 that court found the applicant guilty of insulting S.V., in that he had called him a “real cockroach”. The court fined him 26,666 Croatian kunas (HRK) and also ordered him to bear the costs of proceedings in the amount of HRK 1,000. The applicant was acquitted of the other charges.
That judgment was upheld by the Pula County Court on 24 May 2011. A subsequent constitutional complaint by the applicant was dismissed on 11 December 2014.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that his right to a fair trial was violated, in that the national courts dismissed his proposal that the recording of his presentation be heard by the trial court in order for it to be able to assess the context in which the incriminating statement had been made.
The applicant also complains under Article 10 of the Convention that his right to freedom of expression was violated.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charge against him, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
2. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to freedom of expression, contrary to Article 10 of the Convention?
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