Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 105
February 2008
July and SARL Libération v. France - 20893/03
Judgment 14.2.2008 [Section III]
Article 10
Article 10-1
Freedom of expression
Criminal conviction of the publications director of a newspaper for defaming investigating judges in an article reporting on a press conference organised by the civil parties: violation
Facts: The case concerned a judgment against the French daily newspaper Libération and its publication director Serge July on account of defamation committed through the publication of an article concerning a criminal investigation into the death, in suspicious circumstances, of a French judge while he was on assignment abroad. The article, published under the title Mort d’un juge: la veuve attaque juges et policiers (“Death of a judge: widow attacks judges and police”), reported comments made during a press conference about the case. The aim of the conference had been to make public an official request by the widow of the deceased for an inquiry into the actions of the judges in charge of the criminal investigation. The investigation was criticised on that occasion. The investigating judges in question brought defamation proceedings against the applicants, alleging that four passages in the article were defamatory: “1. Bias. She [widow of the deceased] complains of bias on the part of the judges. 2. The investigation into the case is being conducted in a ‘bizarre’ fashion. 3. [The president of the Judges’ Union], meanwhile, spoke of ‘a catalogue of errors’. 4. Because they [the investigating judges] have been slow”. The Criminal Court acquitted the two applicants. Only the passage referring to “bias on the part of the judges” was found to be defamatory. The court, however, accepted the applicants’ plea of good faith, taking the view that the newspaper, in reporting on the criticism of the investigation, had simply been performing its task of informing the public. The Court of Appeal partly quashed the applicants’ acquittal. It held that, in addition to the allegation that the judges had been biased, the accusation that the investigation had been conducted in a “bizarre” fashion was also defamatory. The court considered that the passages in question damaged the honour and reputation of the two investigating judges. The appellate court, however, did not accept the applicants’ plea of good faith, on the ground that they had patently failed in their duties of caution and objectivity. Serge July was found guilty of public defamation of civil servants and the applicant company was held civilly liable. Serge July was ordered to pay a fine of 10,000 francs (approximately EUR 1,500) and the same amount in damages to each of the civil parties, and to insert an announcement in Libération and in another national daily newspaper setting out the main provisions of the judgment. The Court of Appeal also ordered the applicants jointly and severally to pay the civil parties 20,000 francs (approximately EUR 3,000) in respect of costs not paid by the State. The applicants appealed on points of law on the basis, among other things, of Article 10 of the Convention, but were unsuccessful.
Law: The judgment against the applicants amounted to interference with their right to freedom of expression. The interference had been prescribed by French law and had pursued the legitimate aims of protecting the reputation of the investigating judges concerned, in their capacity as civil servants, and maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
As to whether the interference had been “necessary in a democratic society”, the press was one of the means by which politicians and public opinion could verify that judges were discharging their heavy responsibilities in a manner that was in conformity with the aim forming the basis of the task entrusted to them. This had been particularly true in the present case, as the comments made at the press conference had directly concerned a judicial investigation into a sensitive criminal case that had received exceptionally wide media coverage. The authorities’ margin of appreciation in assessing the “necessity” of the impugned measure was thus limited.
The Court was not persuaded by the reasons given by the Court of Appeal. The article in question had been a report on a press conference concerning a case already in the public domain, and it was not for the national courts to substitute their own views for those of the press as to what techniques of reporting should be adopted by journalists in imparting information. Moreover, the article had rightly used the conditional tense and had used quotation marks in several places in order to avoid any confusion in readers’ minds between the statements made by the speakers and the newspaper’s analysis. The speakers’ names had also been given each time for the benefit of the reader, with the result that it could not be argued, as the appellate court had done, that some passages could be attributed to the journalist and hence to the applicants. Furthermore, the article did not display any personal animosity towards the judges.
The limits of acceptable criticism were wider with regard to civil servants acting in an official capacity. The reasons given by the Court of Cassation for dismissing the applicants’ appeal had been neither relevant nor sufficient, given that the judges in question, both civil servants working for “fundamental institutions of the State” could as such be the subject of personal criticism within “acceptable” limits, expressed not just in a theoretical and general manner. As to the reason given by the Court of Appeal based on the use of the adjective “bizarre”, this description, while it was certainly not flattering, had been attributed by the article to one of the participants in the press conference and had not been used by the journalist personally. In any event, the applicants had not even had recourse to a degree of exaggeration or provocation, although that was permitted in the exercise of journalistic freedom. The Court did not consider the terms in question to be “manifestly insulting” to the two judges concerned and took the view that the grounds cited for finding that the applicants had not acted in good faith sat uneasily with the principles relating to the right of freedom of expression and the role of the press as “watchdog”.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – EUR 7,500 awarded to the applicants jointly.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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