Communicated on 22 January 2014
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 22947/13
MAGYAR TARTALOMSZOLGÁLTATÓK EGYESÜLETE and INDEX.HU ZRT
against Hungary
lodged on 28 March 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicants, Magyar Tartalomszolgáltatók Egyesülete (MTE) and I Zrt, are respectively an association and a company registered under Hungarian law, with their seats in Budapest. They are represented before the Court by Mr L. Bodolai, a lawyer practising in Budaörs.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
The MTE is the self-regulating body of Hungarian internet content providers. I is a Hungarian internet news portal.
On 5 February 2010 MTE issued a statement in which it criticised the business practice of E. Ltd, an entity involved in internet real estate brokering. MTE was of the view that this practice was unethical, misled consumers and was contrary to the Code of Content Providing on Internet. Several readers commented on the statement, which comments were published on MTE’s own website.
I reproduced the statement on its own website, together with comments of readers.
E. Ltd considered that the publication of the statement and of the related comments infringed its right of reputation and sued both applicants.
On 31 March 2011 the Budapest Regional Court established the responsibility of both applicants in respect of some comments made by readers of their publication. The court rejected the remainder of the plaintiff’s claims, holding that the statement itself was within the limits of permissible criticism.
On appeal, on 27 October 2011 the Budapest Court of Appeal upheld in essence the first-instance decision but completed its reasoning. It held that the applicants were objectively liable for the injurious comments made by third parties.
The applicants lodged a petition for review with the Kúria. They argued that, in their interpretation of the relevant law, they were under no obligation to monitor or edit the comments uploaded by readers on their websites.
On 13 June 2012 the Kúria upheld the previous judgments. It stressed that the applicants, by enabling readers to make comments on their websites, had assumed objective responsibility for any injurious or unlawful comments made by those readers.
When the application was introduced, the applicants’ constitutional complaint was pending. However, they argue that this remedy cannot be considered effective in the light of its essentially discretionary character.
COMPLAINT
The applicants complain under Article 10 of the Convention that, by effectively requiring them to moderate the contents of comments made by readers on their websites, the domestic courts unduly restricted their freedom of expression and thus the liberty of internet commenting.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a violation of the applicants’ right to freedom of expression, in particular their right to impart information and ideas, contrary to Article 10 of the Convention, in view of the fact that the domestic courts’ application of the principle of objective liability for the contents of comments made by readers on the applicants’ websites arguably results in an obligation for internet content providers to monitor and edit contributions freely made by internet users?
2. The parties are invited to clarify the legal relationship between the applicants’ corporate entities and the websites, on which the incriminated comments were posted.
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy