Société Prisma Presse v. France (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 56

September 2003

Société Prisma Presse v. France (dec.) - 71612/01

Decision 1.7.2003 [Section II]

Article 10

Article 10-1

Freedom of expression

Press association ordered to issue a communiqué concerning a judgment given against it: inadmissible

An interlocutory order was made against the applicant for having published in the magazine which it publishes an article which intruded into the private life and image of a well-known singer and his wife. As well as awarding damages, the courts ordered that an account of the decision be published in the magazine and on the posters advertising the magazine.

Inadmissible under Article 10: The order made against the applicant may be analysed as an “interference”. As to whether it was prescribed by law, the publication ordered by the courts is not expressly referred to in the law but the Civil Code confers on the courts a power whose framework is defined, namely to “prescribe all appropriate measures … to prevent or to put an end to an interference with the intimacy of private life”. Although the measures in question are not expressly enumerated, they are not unknown: seizure, prohibition, warning, publication or communication are measures widely used in the sphere in question and were placed on a statutory footing by the legislature in 1970. Furthermore, under the Code of Civil Procedure the court may “adopt by interlocutory order all appropriate measures to prevent or to put an end to the interference and also to make good the resulting damage”. In addition, there is a consistent body of case-law which gives legitimacy to judicial publication, which is regarded by the domestic courts as one of the means of making good the damage caused by the press. The fact that publication is ordered in only some cases cannot deprive the provision at issue of the degree of foreseeability required by the case-law. The national case-law thus satisfied the conditions of accessibility and foreseeability necessary to establish that that form of interference is “prescribed by law”. The interference pursued a legitimate aim, namely the protection of the rights of others. As regards the necessity for the interference the sole purpose of the article was to satisfy the curiosity of a certain sector of the public about the intimacy of the private life of the couple in question. It could not be taken to contribute to any discussion of general interest to society, in spite of the fact that the individuals were well known. Furthermore, the publication of a judicial communication may constitute appropriate compensation for the victim by informing the public that he is opposed to the unauthorised circulation of his image. That measure forms part of the “Guidelines” of Resolution 1165 (1998) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and helps to prevent as much as possible certain facts belonging to the purely private domain of public persons from becoming a “highly lucrative commodity for certain sectors of the media”: manifestly ill-founded.

(See the similar case Société PRISMA PRESSE v. France, no. 66910/01, decision of 1 July 2002 [Section II]).

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