Information Note on the Court’s case-law 197
June 2016
Brambilla and Others v. Italy - 22567/09
Judgment 23.6.2016 [Section I]
Article 10
Article 10-1
Freedom to receive information
Conviction of journalists for possessing and using radio equipment to intercept confidential police communications: no violation
Facts – The first applicant is the director of a local online newspaper and the remaining two applicants are journalists working for the newspaper.
In August 2002 the applicants listened in on a conversation during which the carabinieri decided to send a patrol to a location where weapons were being stored illegally. The second and third applicants arrived at the scene while the carabinieri were there. After obtaining a search warrant the carabinieri searched their vehicle and found two items of equipment capable of intercepting police radio communications. They later went to the newspaper’s offices and seized two pieces of equipment tuned to the radio frequencies used by the carabinieri. Other frequencies used by police operational centres were stored in the equipment’s memory.
The applicants were convicted on appeal and received custodial sentences of between six months and one year and three months. The radio equipment was also seized. However, the sentences were suspended by the Court of Appeal. The Court of Cassation dismissed the appeals lodged by the applicants.
Law – Article 10: The Court doubted whether there had been interference with the applicants’ freedom of expression in the present case. Even assuming that Article 10 was applicable, the Court observed that the search and seizure operation and the custodial sentences imposed on the applicants had been prescribed by law.
The measures in question had pursued legitimate aims, in particular the protection of the rights of others and, with more specific reference to the interception of the police communications, the protection of national security and the prevention of disorder and crime.
The applicants had not been prohibited from bringing the news items to the public’s attention. Their conviction had been based solely on the possession and use of radio equipment to intercept police communications, which were confidential under domestic law, in order to obtain information more rapidly.
The courts’ decisions finding that communications between members of the law-enforcement agencies were confidential, and that the journalists’ actions were therefore to be classified as criminal conduct, had also been duly reasoned.
In seeking to obtain information for publication in a local newspaper the applicants had acted in a manner which, according to domestic law and the consistent interpretation of the Court of Cassation, contravened the criminal law prohibiting in general terms the interception by any persons of conversations not addressed to them, including conversations between law-enforcement officers. Furthermore, the journalists’ actions had comprised a technique which they used routinely in the course of their journalistic activity.
Lastly, the Court of Appeal had suspended the applicants’ sentences and there was no evidence in the case file to demonstrate that they had served their custodial sentences. Accordingly, the penalties imposed on the applicants did not appear disproportionate.
The courts had made an appropriate distinction between the applicants’ duty to comply with domestic law and their pursuit of their journalistic activity, which had not otherwise been restricted.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
(See Stoll v. Switzerland [GC], 69698/01, 10 December 2007, Information Note 103; Pentikäinen v. Finland [GC], 11882/10, 20 October 2015, Information Note 189; Erdtmann v. Germany (dec.), 56328/10, 5 January 2016, Information Note 192; and Salihu and Others v. Sweden (dec.), 33628/15, Information Note 196)
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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