Communicated on 13 November 2017
THIRD SECTION
Applications nos. 74389/10 and 15503/13
Konstantin Anatolyevich PRONYAKIN against Russia
and Irina Yuryevna KHARITONOVA against Russia
lodged on 29 November 2010 and 11 February 2013 respectively
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applications concern five sets of defamation proceedings brought by public persons against journalists.
The first set of proceedings was brought by a member of the State Duma against the first applicant, Mr Pronyakin, as an administrator of a private electronic online archive website (“the website”). The website contained two articles criticising the claimant that were written by third persons and originally published on two other websites. The first applicant unsuccessfully pleaded before the domestic courts that he had not authored the articles and thus could not be held liable for defamation. The domestic courts in two instances found for the claimant, referring, in particular, to his “high status” as a member of the State Duma, ordered that a retraction be published on the website, and awarded him 300,000 Russian roubles (RUB) to be paid by the first applicant. Following the supervisory review procedure, the reference to the “high status” was deleted and the amount of the award lessened to RUB 70,000 (approximately 1,660 euros (EUR)).
The remaining four sets of proceedings originated in the same article co‑authored by the two applicants, Mr Pronyakin and Ms Kharitonova, which was published in a local newspaper and on the website in April 2011 and concerned alleged corruption among the entourage of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President in the Far-East Federal Circuit. Four persons featured in the article (a State Duma member, two army generals, and a police general) brought proceedings, independently from each other, against the applicants. The applicants pleaded before the domestic courts that, in so far as the article contained statements of facts, the latter had been based on information obtained from open sources, including publications in other press outlets; otherwise the article contained value judgments. The domestic courts found for the claimants, ordered that retractions be published in the newspaper and/or on the website, and awarded the claimants the total of RUB 100,000 (approximately EUR 2,500) to be paid by each applicant.
QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES
Has there been a violation of the applicants’ right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention on account of the domestic courts’ decisions in each set of defamation proceedings? In particular, did the domestic courts perform a balancing exercise between the need to protect the claimants’ reputation and the applicants’ right to divulge information on issues of public interest (see OOO Izdatelskiy Tsentr Kvartirnyy Ryad v. Russia, no. 39748/05, § 41, 25 April 2017)? Did they give relevant and sufficient reasons to justify the alleged interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression? Did the domestic courts apply standards which were in conformity with the principles embodied in Article 10 of the Convention? Did they base themselves on an acceptable assessment of the relevant facts (ibid., § 46, and Terentyev v. Russia, no. 25147/09, § 24, 26 January 2017)?
APPENDIX
\* MERGEFORMAT Konstantin Anatolyevich PRONYAKIN is a Russian national who was born in 1977 and lives in Khabarovsk.
Irina Yuryevna KHARITONOVA is a Russian national who was born in 1957 and lives in Khabarovsk.
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