Communicated on 11 June 2020
Published on 29 June 2020
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 4110/20
Gergely BORONYÁK
against Hungary
lodged on 23 December 2019
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the right to impart information in accordance with Article 10 of the Convention.
The applicant, an actor, concluded an agency contract with a private television-production company for a main role in a series financed from public funds. According to point 20 of his agency contract, the applicant was bound by business confidentiality. He was obliged not to reveal any information in connection with, inter alia, the contractual fees. According to the agency contract, he also took note of the fact that a breach of this obligation would lead to pay contractual penalty in the amount of 10,000,000 Hungarian forints (approximately 30,000 euros). The case concerns the applicant’s payment obligation towards the private television‑production company for having shared information about his salary.
In the civil proceedings initiated by the television-production company for the payment of the contractual penalty the domestic courts found that the applicant had been bound by the business secrecy even after his contract had been terminated by the company. By sharing information about his salary with an on-line investigative newspaper and later by repeating this information as a witness in court proceedings conducted between third persons he had breached the confidentiality clause. His reference to his right to impart information in the public interest was to no avail, since the domestic courts found that this criterion was not applicable to the applicant’s case since the television-production company was a private one. Therefore, the domestic courts limited their examination to the applicant’s formal compliance with his agency contract.
The Constitutional Court modified the lower-level courts’ reasoning and found that the data in question were information in the public interest. Nevertheless, it held that in proceedings such as the one initiated by the applicant the Constitutional Court’s role was to examine whether the courts’ interpretation of the law had been in compliance with the Fundamental Law. Finding that the applicant’s constitutional complaint pertained to his contractual secrecy obligation and to the penalty clause of the contract, rather than to the courts’ interpretation of the law regarding his right to impart information, the Constitutional Court rejected it without further examination.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Is Article 10 of the Convention applicable to the applicant’s case?
2. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to freedom of expression, more specifically his right to impart information, contrary to Article 10 of the Convention?
3. Did the domestic courts strike a fair balance between the applicant’s right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention and the private company’s right to protection of its business interests? In particular, were the reasons relied upon by the domestic authorities to oblige the applicant to pay a penalty in accordance with his contractual obligations relevant and sufficient for the purposes of Article 10 of the Convention?
4. The parties are invited to submit further information concerning the proceedings conducted between third parties in which the applicant was questioned as a witness.
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy