Communicated on 4 May 2016
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 19532/15
Irina RODINA
against Latvia
lodged on 27 December 2011
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Ms Irina Rodina, is a Latvian national who was born in 1954 and lives in Riga. She is represented before the Court by Ms I. Nikuļceva, a lawyer practising in Riga.
A. The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. On 4 November 2005 a commercial Latvian television channel, TV3, broadcast a programme entitled “About the family scandal”, in which the applicant, who was a doctor, was portrayed as a bad, greedy and ungrateful daughter. Her photograph and personal data were broadcast.
4. The programme alleged that the applicant had sold her mother’s apartment while the latter had been in a psychiatric hospital. After her mother had been released from hospital she had had nowhere to live. The applicant had applied to the domestic courts for an assessment of her mother’s psychiatric condition. The programme included footage of the applicant’s mother, showing her living in poor conditions. It had been filmed in an apartment where she had never lived. A journalist read out the conclusions of a psychiatric report concluding that the applicant’s mother suffered from vascular dementia.
5. On 20 December 2005 the applicant instituted court proceedings against a journalist, a television producer, TV3 Latvia, and her sister N.L., seeking to have the aforementioned allegations declared untrue and harmful to her honour and dignity. She sought their retraction, in addition to compensation for the mental anguish she had suffered. The applicant relied on sections 1635 and 23521 of the Civil Law (Civillikums), sections 7, 21 and 28 of the Law on the Press and Other Mass Media (Likums „Par presi un citiem masu informācijas līdzekļiem”), sections 36 and 38 of the Radio and Television Law (Radio un televīzijas likums), and Article 17 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
6. On 23 September 2008 the Riga City Zemgale District Court (Rīgas pilsētas Zemgales priekšpilsētas tiesa) dismissed the applicant’s claim. It found that the programme about a dispute between the applicant, her sister and their mother had been based on certain facts, and that the journalist in question and the applicant’s sister had given their opinion on the applicant’s actions.
7. On 28 June 2010, following an appeal by the applicant, the Riga Regional Court (Rīgas apgabaltiesa) upheld the aforementioned judgment.
8. On 6 August 2010 the applicant lodged an appeal on points of law. Referring to the cases of Bladet Tromsø and Stensaas v. Norway ([GC], no. 21980/93, ECHR 1999‑III), and Oberschlick v. Austria (no. 2) (1 July 1997, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997‑IV), she argued that the appeal court had not assessed the various factors noted by the Court in those cases, or the programme as a whole.
9. On 4 July 2011 the Senate of the Supreme Court (Augstākās tiesas Senāts) refused leave to appeal on points of law. It noted that the impugned allegations had constituted the opinion of the journalist and the applicant’s mother and sister regarding the family dispute. That opinion had been proportionate, as it had been based on certain facts assessed by the appeal court.
10. It further stated that the appeal court did not need to examine whether or not there had been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for her private life, because she had made a claim for retraction of the allegations harmful to her honour and dignity.
B. Relevant international law
11. Article 17 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides:
“1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks”.
C. Relevant domestic law
1. The Constitution (Satversme)
12. Article 96 enshrines the right to respect for private life, home and correspondence (see Mentzen v. Latvia (dec.), no. 71074/01, ECHR 2004-XII).
2. Civil Law
13. Article 1635 stipulates that any infringement of rights, that is, any unlawful activity per se, shall give the person who has suffered damage the right to claim compensation from the wrongdoer, to the extent that the latter may be held liable for such an act.
14. Section 23521 provides that everyone has the right to demand in court the retraction of information (ziņas) harmful to their honour and dignity, unless the person who disseminated the information proves that it reflects reality.
3. Law on the Press and Other Mass Media
15. Under section 7, it is prohibited to publish information that damages the honour and dignity of a person or slanders them.
16. Under section 21, everyone has the right to ask a mass media outlet to retract any published or broadcast information which does not reflect reality.
17. Section 28 provides that a mass media outlet shall compensate damage, including non-pecuniary damage, caused to a person by the publication of untrue information or slander, or by the violation of their dignity and honour.
4. Radio and Television Law (in force until 10 August 2010)
18. Under section 36, everyone had the right to ask a broadcasting organisation to retract untrue information about them which had been broadcast.
19. Section 38 provided that a broadcasting organisation was under an obligation to compensate damage, including non-pecuniary damage, caused to a person by the broadcasting of information harmful to their dignity and honour, unless the organisation proved that the information reflected reality.
COMPLAINT
20. The applicant complains under Article 8 of the Convention that the Latvian courts failed to protect her right to respect for her private life. They did not adequately balance that right against the right to freedom of expression.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant exhausted the effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, with regard to her complaint under Article 8 of the Convention?
2. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for her private life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention?
3. Was the balancing exercise undertaken by the domestic courts in conformity with the criteria laid down in the Court’s case-law (see, for example, Von Hannover v. Germany (no. 2) [GC], nos. 40660/08 and 60641/08, ECHR 2012)?
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