SECOND SECTION
Application no. 64520/10
Krisztián UNGVÁRY and Irodalom Kft
against Hungary
lodged on 31 October 2010
STATEMENT OF FACTS
THE FACTS
The first applicant, Mr Krisztián Ungváry, is a Hungarian national who was born in 1969 and lives in Budapest. The second applicant, Irodalom Lap és Könyvkiadó Kulturális Szolgáltató Kft (“Irodalom Kft”) is a Hungarian limited liability company, with its seat in Budapest. They are represented before the Court by Ms A. Csapó, a lawyer practising in Budapest.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
Mr Ungváry is a historian specialised in 20th century Hungarian history including State security under the Communist regime.
Irodalom Kft is the publisher of the weekly Élet és Irodalom, in which a study (entitled The Genesis of a Procedure – Dialógus in Pécs) written by Mr Ungváry was published on 18 May 2007.
This article – whose full version had previously constituted a chapter in a reference book, co-authored by Mr Ungváry and outlining the history of the Communist State security – dealt with the actions of the security service against a spontaneous student movement (“Dialógus”) active in Pécs in the 1980s.
The lead of this article pointed out that the recent scandals exposing former agents acting for the party-State’s security system covered up the fact that most reporting for that system had been done through social, accidental or official contacts (as had been the case with a Mr K., a judge of the Constitutional Court at the material time), rather than by actual agents. It was argued that Mr K. had been active in informing the security service and demanding intransigent policies and had had collegial contacts with State security, without being an agent.
In the article, Mr Ungváry relied inter alia on material archived by the security service as a “strictly confidential action plan”, which described the role played by leaders of Pécs University – including Mr K., deputy secretary of the local party committee between 1983 and 1988 – in assisting the security operations. Mr Ungváry characterised Mr K.’s attitude in the Dialógus case as that of a ‘hardliner’, in comparison to other senior staff. To illustrate this label, Mr Ungváry recalled that Mr K. had ordered the removal of Dialógus’s poster saying that “the country needed no such organisation”, that he had reproached a candidate in the Communist youth organisation’s elections having been supported by Dialógus; moreover, in Mr Ungváry’s view, Mr K.’s hardline stance was proved by the style of the information notes drafted by Mr K. for the security services.
Mr K. filed a criminal complaint against Mr Ungváry on charges of libel. However, the latter was acquitted on 25 February 2010.
Meanwhile, Mr K. also filed a defamation action against both applicants. On 9 February 2009 the Budapest Regional Court found for him.
On appeal, on 13 October 2009 the Budapest Court of Appeal reversed this judgment and dismissed Mr. K.’s action, holding that the impugned statements about him were value-judgments with sufficient factual background.
On Mr K.’s petition for review, on 2 June 2010 the Supreme Court reversed the second-instance decision and reverted to the Regional Court’s judgment. It found for Mr K., holding that his personality rights were violated by the false impression, given by the article in question, that he had been a security agent and an infiltrator during Communist times, collaborated with the security agencies and written reports for them, countered the above-mentioned youth organisation official’s election on the secret service’s inspiration and demanded hardline policies in 1983.
The applicants, jointly and severally, were obliged to pay damages in the amount of some 7,100 euros (EUR), whereas Mr Ungváry had to pay another EUR 3,500. The legal costs to be borne by the applicants amounted to approximately EUR 3,300, not including the applicants’ own legal expenses.
COMPLAINT
The applicants complain under Article 10 of the Convention that the Hungarian courts’ finding against them amounted to a violation of their right to freedom of expression, especially in view of the facts that the publication in question was an essay on important questions of contemporary history, concerned the background of a senior public official, and contained value-laden statements of fact, not susceptible to proving their truthfulness, and that the sanction imposed was disproportionately burdensome.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
In view of the Court’s recent case-law on the subject (see AxelSpringer AG v. Germany [GC], no. 39954/08, 7 February 2012; Von Hannover v. Germany (no. 2) [GC], nos. 40660/08 and 60641/08, 7 February 2012), has there been a violation of the applicants’ right to freedom of expression, in breach of Article 10?
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