Information Note on the Court’s case-law 60
January 2004
Lindberg v. Sweden (dec.) - 48198/99
Decision 15.1.2004 [Section I]
Article 13
Effective remedy
Recognition and enforcement by Swedish courts of a judgment delivered in Norway: inadmissible
Facts: The applicant was appointed by the Ministry of Fisheries to serve as seal hunting inspector on board a seal hunting vessel for the 1988 season, having been on the same vessel the year before as a freelance journalist (see Bladet Tromsø and Stensaas v. Norway, ECHR 1999-III). Shortly after the expedition finished, the applicant drew up an inspection report which contained allegations that certain seal hunters had violated the Hunting Regulations. The report received wide coverage in the media and excerpts from it were published in several newspapers. In 1989, a film containing footage shot by the applicant during his stay on board, again showing breaches of the regulations, was partly/entirely broadcast on Norwegian and Swedish television. The members of the crew of the vessel brought defamation proceedings against the applicant in Norway and the City Court declared five of the statements in the inspection report, as well as two others the applicant had made in the television programmes, null and void. It further ordered that footage where the crew members could be identified should not be shown, and awarded them compensation. As the applicant was residing in Sweden, the crew members requested the Swedish authorities to enforce the Norwegian court’s judgment, which they ordered in 1995. The applicant’s appeals against the execution order, arguing that it violated Article 10 of the Convention, were rejected by the Swedish courts at three levels of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court carried out a summary assessment of whether the Norwegian judgment was in conformity with the Convention and found that public order considerations did not prevent the execution of the judgment in Sweden.
Inadmissible under Article 13 in conjunction with Article 10: It was questionable whether the applicant could at all be considered to have an arguable claim for the purposes of Article 13, as the existence of such a claim had to be assessed in relation to the enforcement proceedings in Sweden, not the main proceedings in Norway where the applicant claimed his freedom of expression had been breached (the applicant had previously pursued an application under the Convention against Norway, which the Court had declared inadmissible as being out of time). Even assuming that Article 13 was applicable, there were no compelling reasons against enforcement of the Norwegian judgment. The Swedish courts had reviewed the substance of the applicant’s complaint against enforcement at three levels of jurisdiction to a sufficient degree to provide him an effective remedy for the purposes of Article 13: manifestly ill-founded.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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