5.  The applicant was born in 1950 and lives in Tomsk.
6.  At the material time the applicant, a freelance journalist, was working for a newspaper, Tomskaya Nedelya («Томская неделя»), with a circulation of 66,585. The newspaper is published and distributed in the Tomsk Region.
7.  On 9 December 1999, in its “Social Aspect” section, the newspaper published an article by the applicant headlined “[S.’s] mother was dying here” («Здесь умирала мать [С.]»). The article described everyday life in a State-owned care home for the elderly, Lesnaya Dacha, giving examples of various residents who were or had been living there. It exposed practical difficulties encountered by the personnel in taking care of the residents in the absence of necessary equipment, and also mentioned that quite a few residents had been abandoned in the care home by their relatives.
8.  The article then mentioned the mother of Mr S. (his full surname was given in the headline and in the article), a former deputy of the national parliament (the State Duma), who at that time was standing in elections to the State Duma. The article stated:
“... Quite a few respectable people bring their ill relatives to the care home in an attempt to escape unnecessary troubles.”
That sentence was followed by text in bold letters:
“There is, for example, a room in which the mother of Deputy [S.] died. It is now named after him. It is a single room, however small and narrow. The ill and massively corpulent woman lay here for four months. Nurses remember that it was very hard to lift and turn her ...”
9.  The article also referred to the care home’s chief medical officer, Mr M., as having stated that empathy – mercy – towards the patients was a necessary quality for the personnel in order to work in that institution, and that it was a particularly rare quality at that time which should be revived. The article then quoted Mr M. as follows (the paragraph below was also printed in bold letters):
“... It is for lack of mercy for their next of kin that their relatives bring them here, in order to avoid troubles, as if they themselves are not within God’s power. Sometimes ordinary nurses happen to be more merciful than people in authority ...”
10.  The above-mentioned two paragraphs were the only ones printed in bold in the whole article.
11.  On 31 January 2000 Mr S.S., Mr A.S. and Ms O.K.-S., who were respectively Mr S.’s father, brother and sister, brought defamation proceedings against the applicant. They claimed that the above-mentioned extracts contained statements aiming to create negative feeling on the part of readers towards the S. family and influence them as voters during the elections. They argued in particular that those statements made readers think that the S. family had had no mercy for their closest relative – their wife and mother – that they had taken her to Lesnaya Dacha to get rid of her, and that they had not paid her any visits and had not taken care of her. The claimants insisted that those statements were untrue and damaging to their honour and dignity, and sought compensation in respect of non-pecuniary damage. They also referred to Article 24 of the Russian Constitution, which prohibited the dissemination of information about an individual without his or her consent.
12.  On 17 April 2000 the Leninskiy District Court of Tomsk delivered its judgment. It rejected as unfounded the claimants’ argument concerning a breach of their right to respect for their private life, noting that, by placing their relative, Mrs S., in a State-owned medical institution for the elderly, the claimants had stepped out of the private sphere and into the public domain, and therefore the constitutional principle of the inviolability of private life was inapplicable in the circumstances. The court, having examined certain witnesses, also considered that Mrs S. had indeed caused the claimants inconvenience and complicated their life, and that they had therefore decided to place her in a medical institution. The court thus concluded that the sentence stating “...quite a few respectable people bring their ill relatives to the care home in an attempt to escape unnecessary troubles...” could not be said to be untrue, whether it was the applicant’s generalisation or a sentence relating to the claimants, as alleged by them. The court further found, with reference to relevant evidence adduced by the applicant, that the information concerning Mrs S.’s living conditions in Lesnaya Dacha was also accurate. It also rejected as unfounded the claimants’ argument that the disputed publication had been propagandistic and had aimed to influence voters’ opinions; in this respect, it noted that the text of the article was socially oriented and contained general argument concerning the problems affecting ill and elderly people, with the specific example of the Lesnaya Dacha care home. The court also noted that the general statements of the care home’s chief medical officer concerning a lack of mercy for next of kin had had no link to the claimants or other members of the S. family.
13.  On 30 June 2000 the Tomsk Regional Court upheld the above judgment on appeal.
14.  On 30 May 2001 the Presidium of the Tomsk Regional Court, in supervisory review proceedings, dismissed an extraordinary appeal against the judgment of 17 April 2000 and the appeal decision of 30 June 2000, thus upholding those decisions.
15.  On 28 June 2002, in supervisory review proceedings, the Supreme Court of Russia quashed the judgment of 17 April 2000 and the decisions of 30 June 2000 and 30 May 2001, and sent the case back to the first-instance court for fresh examination.
16.  In a judgment of 20 May 2003 the Leninskiy District Court of Tomsk again dismissed the claims against the applicant, employing reasoning similar to that of the judgment of 17 April 2000.
17.  On 17 October 2003 the Tomsk Regional Court examined the case, on appeal by the claimants. They maintained their claim, stating that the relevant part of the impugned publication had interfered with their private life, and had contained statements damaging to their honour and dignity.
18.  The appellate court set aside the judgment of 20 May 2003 on the grounds of incorrect application by the first-instance court of the substantive law, and delivered a new decision. It noted that, according to Resolution no. 11 of the Supreme Court of Russia (see paragraph 27 below), a claimant was under an obligation to prove the fact of the dissemination of information, whereas a defendant was under an obligation to prove that such information corresponded to reality. The appellate court found that the claimants in the present case had discharged that obligation.
19.  In relation to the sentence stating “...quite a few respectable people bring their ill relatives to the care home in an attempt to escape unnecessary troubles...”, the Tomsk Regional Court disagreed with the first-instance court’s view that the sentence was true and was not damaging to the claimants’ honour and dignity. In particular, the regional court noted that the headline of the article and the sequence of its sentences made it clear that the statement, along with the reference to the lack of mercy for next of kin, although generalised, related to the claimants. In support of this conclusion, the appellate court referred to the statements of two witnesses who had confirmed that they had perceived the extracts to relate to the claimants.
20.  The appellate court went on to examine evidence confirming the poor physical and mental condition of Mrs S., and noted the claimants’ argument that they had placed her in Lesnaya Dacha because of the need to ensure proper medical assistance and care, rather than for lack of mercy. It stated that the applicant had not submitted any evidence capable of refuting that argument, whereas by virtue of Article 152 of the Russian Civil Code, she, as a defendant, was under an obligation to prove the accuracy of her statements. The appellate court also referred to the statement of a witness who had “explained that information disseminated in respect of the claimants, to the effect that Mrs S.’s relatives had not taken care of her, had not corresponded to reality”. The court thus concluded that the disputed information was untrue.
21.  It further found that the disputed information, namely that the claimants had placed their seriously ill close relative in the care home for the elderly because of a lack of mercy, and in order to avoid unnecessary troubles, was a statement that the claimants had breached their moral principles, and was therefore damaging to their honour and dignity, according to the resolution of the Supreme Court. The Tomsk Regional Court thus concluded that the information in the publication that “...quite a few respectable people bring their ill relatives to the care home in an attempt to escape unnecessary troubles because of lack of mercy for their next of kin...” was untrue and damaging to the claimants’ honour and dignity, and ordered the applicant to pay 10,000 Russian roubles (RUB – approximately 285 euros (EUR)) to each of the three claimants as compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
22.  The appellate court’s decision remained silent as regards the claimants’ argument that the impugned article had interfered with their private life.
23.  By a decision of 4 March 2004 a judge of the Tomsk Regional Court declined the applicant’s application to institute supervisory review proceedings in respect of the appellate court’s decision.
24.  On 13 October 2004 the Presidium of the Tomsk Regional Court, in supervisory review proceedings, upheld the decision of 17 October 2003, endorsing its reasoning, but reducing the amount of the award in respect of non-pecuniary damage. The applicant was ordered to pay RUB 4,000 (approximately EUR 110) to each of the three claimants.