Communicated on 17 March 2017
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 27474/08
Georgiy Prokhorovich PIROGOV
against Russia
lodged on 17 March 2008
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
Following a final sentence to a suspended prison term on 8 August 2007 for slandering a regional governor, a civil court ordered the applicant to pay 850 euros to him and to have a refutation printed in a local newspaper for saying during a public event: “Markelov used various criminal-type means (криминальные методы) to fight us. [Yes.] My flat was broken into; the head of the [local NGO] was beaten up; we received threats, some of us were asked ‘What Article of the Criminal Code do you prefer; are you ready to go to prison for child rape or alike? We do have examples of that’.” The courts considered that the applicant had wrongly accused the governor of being linked to or having organised commission of criminal offences. The courts refused to assess the linguistics expert report submitted by the applicant, considering that it focused on a legal (rather than linguistic) assessment of the case, which was not permissible under Russian law.
QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of his civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, were the principle of equality of arms and the requirement of adversarial procedure violated because the civil courts refused, on allegedly spurious grounds, to assess the specialist opinion submitted by the applicant (compare Matytsina v. Russia, no. 58428/10, §§ 185-92, 27 March 2014)?
2. Was there a violation of Article 10 of the Convention on account of the civil proceeding? In particular:
- Was each impugned utterance directly targeting the governor in a sufficiently detailed manner (compare Perna v. Italy [GC], no. 48898/99, §§ 47, ECHR 2003‑V)? Should it be classified as a value judgment (see Morice v. France [GC], no. 29369/10, § 126, ECHR 2015)? Did the applicant substantiate the “factual basis” for targeting the governor and for his allegations (breaking into the flat, ill-treatment and threats)? Did the national courts explain why such basis remained insufficient?
- Was it a foreseeable interpretation of national law that any criticism of a public official could be actionable in defamation because it amounted to an accusation of professional misconduct or another unlawful conduct, namely a criminal offence (compare Perna, cited above, §§ 40-48, and Cumpǎnǎ and Mazǎre v. Romania [GC], no. 33348/96, §§ 97-103, ECHR 2004‑XI)? Did the civil courts take into account the type of the imputed reprehensible conduct, precision and (non-)detailed nature of the related assertions and the sufficiency of the factual basis for such imputation and assertions?
- Was it a disproportionate “penalty” with the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention to impose an award of damages in addition to a suspended prison sentence in relation to the same utterance?
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