Information Note on the Court’s case-law 201
November 2016
Grebneva and Alisimchik v. Russia - 8918/05
Judgment 22.11.2016 [Section III]
Article 10
Article 10-1
Freedom of expression
Conviction of journalists for satirical publication found to be insulting to regional prosecutor: violation
Facts – The applicants were the editor and journalist of a regional newspaper. They were convicted for a publication which the domestic courts had found to be insulting to the regional prosecutor. They complained under Article 10 of the Convention that their conviction had violated their right to freedom of expression.
Law – Article 10: The applicants’ conviction amounted to an interference with their right to freedom of expression. That interference pursued the legitimate aim of the protection of the reputation or rights of others and had been prescribed by law. The question before the Court was whether their conviction had been necessary in a democratic society.
The Court stressed the essential role of the press in a democratic society and its task of imparting information and ideas on matters of public interest. It was particularly important in the period preceding an election that opinions and information of all kinds were permitted to circulate freely. The applicants had published a number of items on the parliamentary election campaign which was underway in their region at that period. The articles addressed, in a satirical and farcical way, various irregularities that, in the applicants’ view, had taken place during the campaign.
Seen as a whole, the article could not be understood as a gratuitous personal attack on, or insult to the prosecutor. The provocative comparisons did not concern his private or family life, but clearly related to his institutional responsibility as the head of the prosecutor’s office of the entire region. The published material denounced the alleged corruption during the election campaign. The applicants had raised an important issue of general interest, which they considered significant for society and thus open public debate.
The terse and underdeveloped reasoning of the domestic courts rendered any defence raised by the applicants devoid of any practical effect. The courts had failed to take any account of the social and political context in which the article had been published or to examine whether it involved a matter of general interest. In particular they had made no attempt to analyse the substance of the published material in the context of the ongoing election campaign or the satirical nature of the publication and the irony underlying it. Finally, they had failed to balance the prosecutor’s right to his reputation against the applicants’ freedom of expression and their duty, as journalists, to impart information of general interest. As such, the domestic courts had failed to provide relevant and sufficient reasons to justify the interference complained of.
Irrespective of the severity of the penalty which is liable to be imposed, recourse to the criminal prosecution of journalists for purported insults criticising a public figure in a manner which could be regarded as personally insulting was likely to deter journalists from contributing to the public discussion of issues affecting the life of the community. The national authorities’ reaction to the applicants’ satirical article was disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued and was therefore not necessary in a democratic society.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: EUR 3,000 each in respect of non-pecuniary damage; EUR 920 each in respect of pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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