Communicated on 14 September 2016
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 49071/12
Emzar DIASAMIDZE and BATUMELEBI against Georgia
and 1 other application
(see list appended)
1. Both applications listed in the appendix were introduced on the relevant dates by the same two applicants.
2. Mr Emzar Diasamidze (“the first applicant”) is a Georgian national who was born in 1969 and lives in the village of Akho. The weekly newspaper Batumelebi (“the second applicant”) is a legal entity established under the Georgian law on an unspecified date, with the head office situated in Batumi. They are represented by Ms T. Abazadze and Ms N. Katsitadze, lawyers practising in Georgia.
3. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
4. The first applicant is an investigative journalist. At the material time of the events described below, he worked for the Batumelebi, the second applicant.
5. Within the context of preparation of two separate and unrelated journalistic investigations, the first applicant, acting in his individual capacity, requested in February and July 2010 the Ministry of Agriculture (“the Ministry”) and Parliament of Georgia, respectively, leave to have access to two particular types of information possessed by those two State agencies. Notably, with respect to the Ministry, and in order to prepare an article about the sudden rise of sugar prices in the country, he sought statistical data about the number of private companies who had requested and obtained permission to import this product in 2010. As to the Parliament, the first applicant requested to provide him with the information about the sums paid in the form of premiums and bonuses to the Members of Parliament and the staff in 2010 as well as about the costs and expenses associated with various missions and retreat meetings held by the parliamentarians in the course of the same year.
6. The State authorities refused to disclose the requested information in full. Notably, the Ministry explained its refusal to account for the number of the companies which had obtained permission to import sugar by reference to the need to protect a trade secret. The Parliament withheld the information about the premiums and bonuses payable to and the costs associated with the various retreat meetings held by its Members in 2010, explaining that it had never collected and processed that particular data.
7. The first applicant, acting in his individual capacity, filed court actions. However, those were dismissed by the domestic courts in two separate sets of administrative-legal proceedings. The courts explained their decisions by a common statement that neither the provisions of the General Administrative Code nor any other statute classified the two particular types of information sought by the first applicant as public data. The State authorities were not therefore required by law to render it accessible to the public.
8. The dates of the adoption and delivery of written copies of the final domestic decisions are mentioned in the appendix.
COMPLAINTS
9. The applicants complain under Article 10 of the Convention about the inability to obtain information from the Ministry of Agriculture and Parliament, which was necessary for conducting their journalistic investigations.
COMMON QUESTIONS
1. Can Article 10 of the Convention be said, in the light of the factual circumstances of the present case, to guarantee the applicants a right of access to information held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Parliament (compare Roche v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 32555/96, § 172, ECHR 2005-X with more recent authorities on the matter, such as Társaság a Szabadságjogokért v. Hungary, no. 37374/05, §§ 26 and 27, April 2009 and Österreichische Vereinigung zur Erhaltung, Stärkung und Schaffung v. Austria, no. 39534/07, § 34, 28 November 2013)?
2. Has the second applicant, the newspaper Batumelebi, exhausted all effective domestic remedies for its complaints under Article 10 of the Convention, as required by Article 35 § 1?
3. In the affirmative, has there been a violation of the applicants’ right to freedom of expression, in particular their right to receive information, contrary to Article 10 of the Convention? In particular, to what extent are the duties and responsibilities inherent in the applicants’ journalistic activities relevant to their claim and the State’s margin of appreciation in this field?
APPENDIX
No.
Application no.
Lodged on
Dates of adoption and delivery of the final domestic decisions
49071/12
20/07/2012
Supreme Court decision of 8 February 2012, delivered to the first applicant on 23 February 2012.
51940/12
01/08/2012
Supreme Court decision of 21 March 2011, delivered to the first applicant on 15 March 2012.
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