FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 17766/16
PUBLIC ASSOCIATION “INFORMATION CENTER GENDERDOC-M”
against the Republic of Moldova
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 13 November 2025 as a Committee composed of:
Gilberto Felici, President,
Diana Sârcu,
Sébastien Biancheri, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 17766/16) against the Republic of Moldova lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 18 March 2016 by Public Association “Information Center Genderdoc-M” (“the applicant association”), a non-governmental organisation registered in Chișinău and represented by Ms D. Străisteanu, a lawyer practising in Chișinău;
the decision to give notice of the complaint concerning positive obligations under Articles 8, 13 and 14 of the Convention to the Moldovan Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent at the relevant time, Mr O. Rotari;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the authorities’ alleged failure to fulfil their positive obligation to hold those offering the possibility of commenting online responsible for the content of such comments when they incite hatred and discrimination against members of the LGBT community.
2. The applicant association was created with the aim of promoting equality and the protection of the rights and interests of LGBT persons in the Republic of Moldova.
3. On 13 May 2014 Pro-TV Chișinău, a private television station, published on its online news portal a news item entitled “The gays from Moldova keep the march location secret. What they say about Conchita Wurst’s Eurovision win.” According to the news item, the LGBT community were not frightened to participate and trusted that the police would protect them during the march to be organised by the applicant organisation. However, to avoid any incidents, the exact route of the march would be announced one hour before the event.
4. The news portal included a section reserved for comments, which could be made under a freely chosen pseudonym. A number of the comments posted included insults and threats of violence against members of the LGBT community. The applicant association did not inform the Court of any incident at the march itself, which took place on 17 May 2014 with the participation of approximately on hundred persons, under the protection of the police.
5. On 2 July 2014 the applicant association lodged an application with the Rîșcani District Court in Chișinău against Pro-TV for failing to moderate content on its news portal, specifically for failing to remove some of the insulting and threatening comments under the above-mentioned news item. The applicant association submitted that by lodging the application it “sought to obtain a court decision determining the obligations of online news portals to moderate comments which affect the honour and dignity of persons about whom the article had been written and to prevent calls for hatred, violence and discrimination against persons known or perceived as belonging to the LGBT community”.
6. On 23 February 2015 the Rîșcani District Court in Chișinău partly accepted the applicant association’s claims. On 22 September 2015 the Chișinău Court of Appeal overturned the lower court’s judgment, fully rejecting the claims against Pro-TV because the law did not provide for the responsibility of a news portal for comments posted by visitors. In a final decision of 2 February 2016, the Supreme Court of Justice upheld that judgment.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
7. The applicant association complained under Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Articles 10 and 17 that the authorities had failed to fulfil their positive obligations of preventing and penalising hate speech against LGBT persons. It also complained of a breach of Article 13 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Articles 8 and 14 because of the lack of an effective remedy against the provocation of hate and discrimination against LGBT persons.
8. Being the master of the characterisation to be given in domestic law to the facts of the case, the Court considers that the applicant association’s complaints are to be examined from the point of view of compliance with Article 8 of the Convention taken together with Articles 13 and 14 (see, for instance, Genderdoc-M and M.D. v. the Republic of Moldova, no. 23914/15, § 23, 14 December 2021).
Article 8 reads as follows:
“1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
Article 13 reads as follows:
“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”
Article 14 reads as follows:
“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in [the] Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”
Admissiblity
9. The Government argued that the applicant association lacked victim status since it had not shown that it had been directly affected by the alleged breaches of Convention rights.
10. The applicant association argued that it was the only association representing the LGBT community in the Republic of Moldova and it represented the interests of every member of that organisation. The LGBT community was among the most hated communities in the country, as confirmed by numerous reports. Because of the many hate crimes against LGBT persons (the applicant association referred to six such cases), members of the community could not defend their rights individually. Moreover, the subject of the domestic lawsuit in issue in the present case had not been the protection of the honour and dignity of individual members of the LGBT community, but rather the issue of responsibility of web page owners and administrators for homophobic hate speech and instigation to violence and discrimination against members of that community.
11. The Court, firstly, notes that the applicant association did not seek leave to represent any individual applicant. The Court reiterates that in situations such as this, where the domestic courts recognised the procedural status of an organisation representing the rights of the members of a particularly vulnerable community, it is open for individual members of such community to lodge their applications with the Court. Even where they did not participate directly in the domestic proceedings, their rights being defended in those proceedings by a specialised organisation, they may claim standing in the proceedings before the Court (see Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuania, no. 41288/15, §§ 78-81, 14 January 2020). This would make it possible for individual applicants to defend their rights both domestically and before the Court without fear of repercussion. To avoid the risk from exposure of their personal details in the Court’s proceedings, they may also obtain anonymity. However, no individual person affected by the alleged breach of Convention rights lodged an application with the Court.
12. The Court must determine whether the applicant association can claim a breach of any Convention rights in its own name. In this regard, it reiterates that the word “victim”, in the context of Article 34 of the Convention, denotes the person or persons directly or indirectly affected by the alleged violation (see SARL du Parc d’Activités de Blotzheim v. France, no. 72377/01, § 20, 11 July 2006). Therefore, Article 34 concerns not just the direct victim or victims of the alleged violation, but also any indirect victims to whom the violation would cause harm or who would have a valid and personal interest in seeing it brought to an end (see, mutatis mutandis, Defalque v. Belgium, no. 37330/02, § 46, 20 April 2006, and Tourkiki Enosi Xanthis and Others v. Greece, no. 26698/05, § 38, 27 March 2008).
13. The Court further reiterates that an association cannot be allowed to claim, under Article 34 of the Convention, to be a victim of the acts or omissions which affected the rights and freedoms of its individual members who themselves are adult persons with full legal capacity to act and can thus lodge complaints with the Court in their own name (see, among other authorities, Vallianatos and Others v. Greece [GC], nos. 29381/09 and 32684/09, § 47, ECHR 2013 (extracts); Stichting Mothers of Srebrenica and Others v. the Netherlands (dec.), no. 65542/12, §§ 115-16, ECHR 2013 (extracts); Fédération chrétienne des témoins de Jéhovah de France v. France (dec.), no. 53430/99, ECHR 2001-XI; Association des Amis de Saint-Raphaël et de Fréjus and Others v. France (dec.), no. 45053/98, 29 February 2000; Identoba and Others v. Georgia, no. 73235/12, § 45, 12 May 2015; and Genderdoc-M and M.D. v. the Republic of Moldova, cited above, § 25).
14. The Court acknowledges that legal entities can, in principle, be affected in the exercise of their own right to freedom of expression and to freedom of peaceful assembly (see, for instance, Ukrainian Media Group v. Ukraine, no. 72713/01, §§ 38-70, 29 March 2005, and Hyde Park and Others v. Moldova (nos. 5 and 6), nos. 6991/08 and 15084/08, § 32, 14 September 2010). However, the applicant association has not shown how the anonymous comments made on a news portal affected its own activities (contrast the facts in, for instance, Identoba, cited above, § 48, where attacks against the participants of a march organised by that applicant association also affected the organiser’s right, in its own corporate interest, to have messages relating to the situation of the LGBT community in Georgia expressed by means of a specific planned – and interrupted – public procession).
15. In its submissions, the applicant association argued that the domestic proceedings it had started had not concerned the rights and dignity of any individual members of the LGBT community, but rather had related to a general matter concerning the responsibility of online forum providers in respect of comments made by the public. However, in its application to the Court, it expressly referred to the authorities’ failure to act with respect to hate speech against LGBT persons (see paragraph 7 above), not against the applicant association itself. For instance, it did not assert that the march it had organised in 2014 had been interrupted or that it had been limited in its ability to reach out to the public concerning the situation of the LGBT community in the Republic of Moldova.
16. It follows that the applicant association cannot validly claim, on the facts of the present case, to be either a direct or indirect victim, within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention, of a breach of Article 8 of the Convention, taken either separately or in conjunction with Articles 13 and 14. The application is thus incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 4 December 2025.
Martina Keller Gilberto Felici
Deputy Registrar President