Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 123
October 2009
Europapress Holding d.o.o. v. Croatia - 25333/06
Judgment 22.10.2009 [Section I]
Article 10
Article 10-1
Freedom of expression
Award of damages against magazine in libel action by government minister: no violation
Facts – The applicant company was a newspaper publisher. In 1996 one of its magazines published an article under the headline “Minister Š. pointed a handgun at journalist E.V.!” in which it reported that the then Minister of Finance had been involved in an altercation with a journalist and had allegedly taken a handgun from a security officer and pointed it at the journalist saying that he would kill her, before laughing loudly at his joke. The minister sued the applicant company, which, in its defence, maintained that the information was true, of public interest and from a trustworthy source, E.V. It also said that it had checked with an (unidentified) source close to the government before going ahead with the story. After hearing evidence from eyewitnesses that was at variance with the account given in the article, the municipal court found on the facts that the magazine had published untrue information without properly verifying its accuracy. It awarded the minister damages and costs.
Law – Article 10: The sole issue before the Court was whether the interference with the applicant company’s freedom of expression, which was prescribed by law and pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the reputation and rights of others, had been necessary in a democratic society. Article 10 did not guarantee wholly unrestricted freedom of expression even where, as here, it concerned press coverage of matters of serious public concern and political figures. The exercise of that freedom carried with it duties and responsibilities which assumed significance when a named individual’s reputation was attacked. Journalists were required to act in good faith in order to provide accurate and reliable information in accordance with the ethics of journalism. The article in question contained specific allegations of fact that were susceptible to proof. It was written in a manner that left the reader in no doubt as to the truthfulness of the information and gave no indication that it was merely reporting what others had said, but instead adopted the offending allegations as its own. The applicant company was therefore liable to demonstrate the veracity of those allegations. Eyewitnesses had testified before the domestic courts that at no point had a gun been pointed at E.V. and even E.V. had been unable to assert the contrary. There were, therefore, no elements to lead the Court to depart from the domestic courts’ findings that the applicant company had failed to demonstrate that the information published was true. Further, although the seriousness of the allegations meant that they had required substantial justification, there was no evidence that the magazine had attempted to contact the minister or any of the eyewitnesses. Instead it had relied on its source in Government, who clearly could not have witnessed the incident. The applicant company had not, therefore, sufficiently verified the information prior to publication. If, in view of the time-constraints, the magazine had wished to publish without adequately checking the facts, a more cautious approach had been warranted and it should have been made clear that the information came from E.V. and was not undisputed fact. Lastly, neither the decision to award damages nor the measure of the award appeared to have been excessive, especially as it had been made against the applicant company, not individuals. In sum, the domestic courts had given “relevant and sufficient” reasons in support of their decisions and the damages awarded against the applicant company were not disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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