THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 33077/09
Lyudmila Nikolayevna VLADIMIROVA
against Russia
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 5 November 2019 as a Committee composed of:
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque, President,
Helen Keller,
María Elósegui, judges,
and Stephen Phillips, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 20 May 2009,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Ms Lyudmila Nikolayevna Vladimirova, is a Russian national, who was born in 1949 and lives in Voronezh. She was represented before the Court by Ms S. Kuzevanova, a lawyer practising in Voronezh.
2. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented initially by Mr G. Matyushkin, the Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights, and then by his successor in that office, Mr M. Galperin.
3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
4. At the material time the applicant was a senior lecturer at the Voronezh State University and the president of the university trade union representing members of staff.
5. On 28 April 2007 she sent a letter to the Minister of Education and the President’s Head of Office. She complained on behalf of the trade union about alleged irregularities in the collective bargaining process, sale of the university’s land for commercial development, and other matters. She stated in particular that the university’s administration had begun “rolling out yet another anti-union project” which involved registering of a new trade union and forcing staff members to leave the union of which she was the president. That and other measures allegedly pursued the aim of excluding the union from the collective bargaining process by reducing its membership to less than fifty per cent of the staff. To that end, part-time employees had been stripped of the right to vote at the staff meeting and “subjected to social discrimination by the administration”.
6. The applicant subsequently posted a copy of the letter on the website of the trade union.
7. In April 2008, Mr T., president of the Voronezh State University, sued the applicant in defamation. He claimed that the allegations of an “anti-union project” and “social discrimination” undermined his standing as the elected head of academic administration. The applicant submitted in her defence that the letter had sought to convey relevant information to the officials concerned, that Mr T. had not been mentioned by name, that the statements had not damaged his reputation, and that they had been value judgments not susceptible of proof.
8. On 15 September 2008 the Leninskiy District Court in Voronezh granted the defamation claim in part. It found that the applicant had made her allegations public by posting the letter on the union’s website. The allegations could have been read as targeting Mr T. who was one of seven vice-chancellors and the head of academic administration responsible for its appointment, management and functioning. The District Court rejected the claim in the part concerning certain statements which it found to have been “impersonal and neutral in their contents”. By contrast, the allegations of an “anti-union project” and “social discrimination” were deemed to be statements of fact, the truth of which the applicant had not shown. She had not produced any evidence of pressure being brought to bear on staff members to force them to join the new trade union or that the position of the trade union had been misrepresented at the staff meeting. Her previous complaints to the Voronezh prosecutor, the Federal Agency for Education, and the Ministry of Education and Science had been rejected as unfounded. The District Court awarded Mr T. one Russian rouble in respect of non-pecuniary damages, the amount he had claimed.
9. On 25 November 2008 the Voronezh Regional Court upheld the judgment on appeal.
COMPLAINT
10. The applicant complained under Article 10 of the Convention about unjustified interference with her right to freedom of expression.
THE LAW
11. The Government submitted that the applicant had not suffered a significant disadvantage by reason of the negligible amount of the award and that her application was inadmissible under Article 35 § 3 (b) of the Convention. The interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression had been lawful, had pursued the legitimate aim of the protection of the reputation of Mr T. and had also been necessary because her allegations had been both unsubstantiated and damaging to his reputation. The Government emphasised that the applicant had posted the letter to a website to give her allegations a wider circulation and greater publicity.
12. The applicant responded that the nature of the alleged violation and the chilling effect of the domestic judgments on her ability to lead the trade union warranted a continued examination of the application by the Court. The interference had not been necessary in a democratic society. Her statements had been her opinion on a matter of public interest which she had brought to the attention of competent authorities. The letter had been posted to the union’s webpage which had been chiefly accessed by the union members. As a public figure, Mr T. should have been prepared to tolerate a greater amount of criticism than a private person.
13. The relevant part of Article 35 reads as follows:
“3. The Court shall declare inadmissible any individual application submitted under Article 34 if it considers that:
...
(b) the applicant has not suffered a significant disadvantage, unless respect for human rights as de-fined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto requires an examination of the application on the merits and provided that no case may be rejected on this ground which has not been duly considered by a domestic tribunal.”
14. The Court reiterates that this admissibility criterion hinges on the idea that a violation of a right, however real from a purely legal point of view, should attain a minimum level of severity to warrant consideration by an international court (see Ladygin v. Russia (dec.), no. 35365/05, 30 August 2011). The assessment of the minimum level is relative and depends on all the circumstances of the case, including the applicant’s subjective perception and what was objectively at stake in a particular case (see Korolev v. Russia (dec.), no. 25551/05, ECHR 2010; Finger v. Bulgaria, no. 37346/05, § 70, 10 May 2011). The application of this admissibility criterion is not limited to any particular right under the Convention. However, in cases concerning freedom of expression, its application must take due account of the importance of this freedom and be subject to careful scrutiny by the Court. This scrutiny should encompass, among others, such elements as contribution to a debate of general interest and whether a case involves the press or other news media (see Sylka v. Poland (dec.), no. 19219/07, § 28, 3 June 2014).
15. The rule contained in Article 35 § 3 (b) consists of three elements. The Court must establish, firstly, that the applicant has not suffered a “significant disadvantage”, secondly, that respect for human rights does not call for the examination of the case, and, thirdly, that the case was duly considered by a domestic tribunal (see Smith v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 54357/15, § 44, 28 March 2017).
16. In considering whether the applicant has suffered a “significant disadvantage”, the Court notes the symbolic nature of the award against her – one Russian rouble. Her argument that the defamation proceedings had undermined her standing as the trade-union leader does not convince the Court. The impugned judgments were issued more than one and a half years after the controversy surrounding the registration of a new trade union and the alleged drain in the old union’s membership had arisen. Accordingly, the Court finds no objective grounds to hold that the applicant suffered important adverse consequences as a result of the defamation proceedings against her (compare Mura v. Poland (dec.), no. 42442/08, § 27, 9 May 2016).
17. The Court further notes that the applicant’s complaint, even though it relates to the right to freedom of expression, does not give rise to an important matter of principle. It does not appear to have wider implications or public interest undertones which might raise concerns under Article 10 of the Convention (see Sylka, cited above, § 35). The Court has previously examined cases concerning defamation proceedings born out of citizens’ complaints to the authorities (see 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) and also cases concerning the exercise of the freedom of expression in the context of labour disputes (see Palomo Sánchez and Others v. Spain [GC], nos. 28955/06 and 3 others, ECHR 2011, and Csánics v. Hungary, no. 12188/06, 20 January 2009). Its case-law in this type of cases is well‑established and respect for human rights does not require the Court to continue the examination of the present case.
18. Lastly, as regards the manner in which the domestic courts examined the matter, the Court notes that they set out the reasons for considering that Mr T.’s reputation had been affected, that the grievances had been made public rather than communicated to the competent State officials, and that the allegations had been unsubstantiated. The Court accordingly finds that the domestic tribunals have duly considered the relevant issues.
19. In view of the above considerations, the Court holds that the application is inadmissible and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (b) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 28 November 2019.
Stephen PhillipsPaulo Pinto de Albuquerque
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy