Communicated on 9 December 2015
THIRD SECTION
Applications nos 32200/09 and 33077/09
Vladimir Ivanovich SHUMSKIY against Russia
and Lyudmila Nikolayevna VLADIMIROVA against Russia
lodged on 11 June 2009 and 20 May 2009 respectively
STATEMENT OF FACTS
A. Application no. 32200/09 by Mr Shumskiy
The applicant, Mr Vladimir Ivanovich Shumskiy, is a Russian national, who was born in 1977 and lives in the settlement of Anna in the Voronezh Region. He is represented before the Court by Ms L.I. Shumskaya, a lawyer practising in Anna.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
At the material time the applicant, a lawyer, represented limited liability company “A.” (“the company”).
On 15 March 2007 the applicant, acting on the company’s behalf, sent a written complaint, which was not made public, to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia alleging instances of corruption and bribery among agents of the prosecutor’s office of the Anninskiy District of the Voronezh Region (“the district prosecutor’s office”). It appears that he mentioned the name of Mr S., the district prosecutor. The complaint read, in particular, as follows:
“I request you to take measures of prosecutorial reaction to stop ... the corruption ... in the prosecutor’s office of the Anninskiy District of the Voronezh Region.”
On 31 March 2008 the applicant left a message on the official website of the President of Russia (), which was not made public. He claimed that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia had been ignoring his complaints implicating the agents of the district prosecutor’s office. The message, in so far as relevant, was worded as follows:
“The Prosecutor General’s Office, to put it simply, are unwilling to interfere with the bespredel that is created by agents of local prosecutors’ offices, in particular, by Mr S., the prosecutor of the Anninskiy District of the Voronezh Region.”
The term bespredel («беспредел») employed by the applicant has no English equivalent. Originating from criminal argot, nowadays it is commonly used in the Russian language to describe limitless or unbridled behaviour on the part of someone in a position of power of any kind or the general climate of lawlessness.
Having learned of the complaint to the Prosecutor General’s Office and of the message on the website penned by the applicant, Mr S. requested the investigative authorities to open a criminal investigation on account of libel under Article 130 of the Russian Criminal Code. On 24 April 2008 an investigator of the Anninskiy Inter-district Investigative Unit of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office refused to institute criminal proceedings.
Mr S. brought a civil action for defamation against the applicant claiming retraction of the impugned statements and non-pecuniary damage in the amount of 100 Russian roubles (RUB). Upon the applicant’s motion the company was admitted to the civil defamation proceedings as a co‑defendant.
On 8 July 2008 the Anninskiy District Court of the Voronezh Region (“the Anninskiy district court”) found in Mr S.’s favour, having reasoned that allegations of corruption were damaging to one’s reputation and that the applicant had “intended to harm the plaintiff”. It ordered the applicant and the company to retract the defamatory statements by sending letters to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the President of Russia. It also ordered each respondent to pay Mr S. RUB 100 in non-pecuniary damage.
On 30 July 2008 the Anninskiy district court delivered an additional judgment to resolve the issue of court fees and ordered the applicant and the company to pay under this head RUB 100 and RUB 2,000, respectively.
On 11 December 2008 the Voronezh Regional Court sitting on appeal quashed the judgment in the part concerning the company and upheld it in the part concerning the applicant.
The applicant further sought to institute supervisory-review proceedings, but to no avail.
B. Application no. 33077/09 by Ms Vladimirova
The applicant, Ms Lyudmila Nikolayevna Vladimirova, is a Russian national, who was born in 1949 and lives in Voronezh. She is represented before the Court by Ms S.I. Kuzevanova, a lawyer practising in Voronezh.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant is a professor at the Voronezh State University (“the university”) and the head of the university’s staff trade union.
On 28 April 2007 the applicant sent on the trade union’s behalf a letter to the Minister of Education of Russia and the head of the Administration of the President of Russia reporting alleged breaches of labour law by the university’s administration and other irregularities. The applicant enclosed a number of documents in support of the allegations. The letter read, in so far as relevant, as follows:
“The administration [of the university] has begun to implement in our building yet another anti‑unionist project ...”
“When calculating the percentage of trade union members, to increase the number of employees [they] include all employees regardless of whether they work full- or part-time. However, when calculating the number of representative delegates to the staff conference, [they] apparently divested of votes a considerable number of part‑time employees who have been subjected to social discrimination by the administration [of the university].”
A copy of the letter was published on the trade union’s website.
On 11 April 2008 Mr T., the president of the university, brought civil proceedings for defamation against the applicant before the Leninskiy District Court of Voronezh (“the Leninskiy district court”). He claimed retraction of allegedly defamatory statements contained in the letter of 28 April 2007 and non-pecuniary damage in the amount of one Russian rouble. The applicant submitted her written objections to the statement of claims asserting that Mr T. had not been mentioned in the letter, that the purpose of the letter had been to report irregularities in the administration’s conduct to a supervising body, not to defame Mr T., and that the impugned statements had been value judgments not susceptible of proof.
Having received from the Leninskiy district court instructions to analyse the text of the letter of 28 April 2007, an expert linguist prepared a report stating that the term “administration” had been used in the letter as a euphemism to avoid naming Mr T. in person.
On 15 September 2008 the Leninskiy district court, having relied on the expert linguist’s report, granted Mr T.’s claims in part. It declared the following statements to be damaging to Mr T.’s reputation: “[t]he administration [of the university] has begun to implement in our building yet another anti‑unionist project”, and “[employees] who have been subjected to social discrimination by the administration [of the university]”, and found that the applicant had failed to prove their veracity. The court awarded Mr T. one Russian rouble in non‑pecuniary damage.
On 25 November 2008 the Voronezh Regional Court upheld the judgment of 15 September 2008 in full.
The applicant’s attempts to initiate a supervisory review procedure were unsuccessful.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complain under Article 10 of the Convention that the respective defamation proceedings against them amounted to a breach of their right to freedom of expression.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Was there an interference with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression as a result of the defamation proceedings against each of them which resulted in the judgments of 25 November and 11 December 2008 by the Voronezh Regional Court? If so, did it comply with the requirements of the second paragraph of Article 10 of the Convention (see, for example, Zakharov v. Russia, no. 14881/03, 5 October 2006; Kazakov v. Russia, no. 1758/02, 18 December 2008; and Bezymyannyy v. Russia, no. 10941/03, 8 April 2010)?
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