Information Note on the Court’s case-law 240
May 2020
Mándli and Others v. Hungary - 63164/16
Judgment 26.5.2020 [Section IV]
Article 10
Article 10-1
Freedom of expression
Lack of adequate safeguards for suspending journalists’ accreditation to enter Parliament on account of interviews and video recordings with MPs outside designated areas: violation
Facts – The applicant journalists’ accreditations to enter the Parliament building were suspended by the Speaker for having conducted interviews and video recordings with members of Parliament (MPs) outside the designated areas. The suspension lasted five months.
Law – Article 10: The suspension of the applicants’ accreditation to enter the Parliament building for a period of almost five months had had adverse effects, preventing them from obtaining first-hand and direct knowledge based on their personal experience of the work of Parliament and of events taking place in the building. There had been an interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression.
The interference complained of had a legal basis and the relevant provisions satisfied the “lawfulness” requirements. The applicants, media professionals, had been aware of the relevant provisions and, in the case of disorderly conduct, it had been only to be expected that they would be escorted out of the Parliament building and that their entry would be restricted.
The interference had been intended to prevent disruption to the work of Parliament so as to ensure its effective functioning and thus had pursued the legitimate aim of the “prevention of disorder”. It had also been intended to protect the rights of MPs and thus had pursued the aim of the “protection of the rights of others”.
The recordings in question had not been meant to present MPs in a sensationalist manner. They had intended to document the reaction of MPs on alleged illicit payments linked to the National Bank, a matter of considerable public interest which had attracted significant media attention. As regards the applicants’ interest in being allowed entry to Parliament for further reporting, this had been related to matters of which the public had a legitimate interest in being informed.
Having regard to the fact that the allegedly disruptive conduct had occurred outside plenary sessions or other political discussions within Parliament, the present case was to be distinguished from situations where measures had been taken in response to speech or conduct interfering with the orderly conduct of parliamentary debate. However, Parliaments were entitled to some degree of deference in regulating conduct in Parliament, by designating areas for recording, to avoid disruption in parliamentary work without such disruption being manifest, and the Court’s scrutiny of such regulations should be limited. In any case, the prohibition on recording was limited to clearly defined areas in Parliament that appeared to be directly relevant to the functioning of the legislature. Furthermore, by not respecting the regulations on recording, the applicants had knowingly risked being sanctioned. The impugned sanction had thus been supported by relevant reasons. The Court decided not to examine whether those reasons were also sufficient. Instead, it focused its review on whether the restriction in issue had been accompanied by effective and adequate safeguards against abuse.
With regard to the manner in which the sanction had been imposed on the applicants, the procedural safeguards should be adapted to the parliamentary context, bearing in mind the generally recognised principles of parliamentary autonomy and the separation of powers. At the same time, precisely because of those principles, the applicants could not be considered entitled to a remedy to challenge outside Parliament a sanction imposed by organs of Parliament. The lack of any external control made the argument for procedural safeguards particularly relevant in the present case.
At the material time, domestic law contained a restriction on entry in the event of a breach of the relevant provisions, without requiring any assessment of the potential impact of the sanction or the relevance of the journalistic activity giving reason for the restriction. Furthermore, it did not provide for the possibility for persons sanctioned to be involved in the relevant decision-making procedure. The procedure in the applicants’ case had consisted of a letter addressed to the relevant editors-in-chief informing them of the suspension of the applicants’ accreditation. Furthermore, neither the relevant provisions nor the impugned decision to ban the applicants from entering Parliament specified the period of restriction and the applicants’ subsequent requests for authorisation to enter Parliament had been left unanswered. Lastly, domestic law did not offer any effective means of challenging the Speaker’s decision where the applicants could have presented their arguments.
Having regard to the foregoing, the impugned interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression had not been proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued because it had not been accompanied by adequate procedural safeguards.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41: finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage.
(See also Karácsony and Others v. Hungary [GC], 42461/13 and 44357/13, 17 May 2016, Information Note 196, and Selmani and Others v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 67259/14, 9 February 2017, Information Note 204)
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy