31.  The applicant newspaper endeavoured to repair an omission it had made in the first article by citing hearsay evidence to back up its accusation of bribe-taking. It was only when faced with the threat of civil proceedings that it called two additional witnesses in an attempt to lend substance to its allegations of bribe-taking. In the course of adversarial proceedings, the Buiucani District Court did not accept the applicant newspaper’s arguments and evidence and found the allegations to be untrue and defamatory. The Court would underline that it does not accept the reasoning of the first-instance court, namely that the allegations of serious misconduct levelled against the claimant should have first been proved in criminal proceedings. Nevertheless, it should be stressed that the right to  <mask> cannot be taken to confer on newspapers an absolute right to act in an irresponsible manner by charging individuals with criminal acts in the absence of a basis in fact at the material time (see Bladet Tromsø and Stensaas, cited above, § 66) and without offering them the possibility to counter the accusations. There are limits to their right to impart information to the public, and a balance must be struck between that right and the rights of those injured.


65.  The Government also produced a letter in which the University provided replies to the Government’s questions. It stated, inter alia, that the University had assessed the question whether a less restrictive measure could be applied to the applicant and had also examined the employee’s right to  <mask>, as attested to by the analysis of the impugned email carried out by the ethics committee and the ad hoc investigative committee.


50.  The applicant argued (see paragraphs 31-32 above) that she had made the impugned media statements in the exercise of her constitutionally guaranteed right of reply. She added that she had acted primarily with a view to responding to what she had seen as groundless criticism of her in the same newspaper by another officer of the same company, namely the chairman of its General Meeting, who had also been the municipal mayor. In that connection the Court reiterates that the right of rectification or of reply, as an important element of  <mask>, falls within the scope of Article 10 of the Convention (see Kaperzyński v. Poland, no. 43206/07, § 66, 3 April 2012, and Melnychuk v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 28743/03, ECHR 2005-IX). This flows from the need not only to be able to contest untruthful information, but also to ensure a plurality of opinions, especially in matters of general interest (ibid.). At the same time, the restrictions and limitations of the second paragraph of Article 10 are equally pertinent to the exercise of that right (see Melnychuk, cited above).


38.  The Government stressed that the issue at hand was a dispute between two journalists, namely two persons whose profession was to pursue critical journalism. Journalists who used strong expressions and pursued so-called investigative journalism could be expected to tolerate even severe criticism of their activities. In the present case, the national courts had weighed in the balance in their judgments different considerations going to  <mask> and the protection of private life and had exercised the discretion available to them. It was the Appeal Court which had considered that the limits of acceptable criticism had been exceeded, holding that the first applicant had intentionally made serious accusations against the complainant and had defamed him by calling him a liar.


49.  The applicants considered that the right to respect for private life did admittedly have to be upheld, but that it was not absolute, especially when it clashed with the right to  <mask> and information, and the rights of the other people concerned by the publication. They criticised the domestic courts for failing to balance the Prince’s rights against other rights which, they submitted, were of equal value: the rights of the mother, which they considered to be no less legitimate in a democratic society; the child’s right to be officially recognised; and the magazine’s right to impart information of public interest which was no longer confidential at the date of publication.


21.  The applicant company alleged a violation of its right to  <mask>. It submitted that the domestic courts' injunctions prohibiting it from distributing the book Le Grand Secret had not been prescribed by law, had not pursued a legitimate aim and had not been “necessary in a democratic society”; it further complained that the “exorbitant” award of damages which it had also been ordered to pay had not been proportionate to the aim pursued. It relied on Article 10 of the Convention, which provides:


66.  The Government also considered that, even if the Court did see the applicant’s discharge from the military as an interference with the exercise of his right to  <mask>, that presumption would be incorrect. The Government categorically rejected any such considerations, because the applicant had been discharged in accordance with the domestic law for having reached retirement age, and not because of the criticism he had expressed in the article in Kauno Diena. The Government also pointed out that in the domestic proceedings concerning his discharge the applicant had raised his allegation of discrimination only very briefly, while in essence disputing the interpretation and application of Article 38 § 1 (7) of LMS. However, having regard to the interpretation of that provision by the administrative courts in the applicant’s case as well as in other relevant case-law, the applicant was discharged from the military in accordance with the domestic law, and there was no ground to allege any possible discrimination in any regard.


13.  The Government did not dispute that there had been an interference with the applicant’s right to  <mask>. They argued however in essence that the impugned expression was so offensive that the applicant’s prosecution had corresponded to a pressing social need. In any event, his case had finished with only a reprimand; consequently, the interference could not be considered disproportionate.


33.  The applicant's lawyer submitted that the interference with the applicant's  <mask> had been in breach of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. She considered that the domestic courts had failed to take into account that the impugned statements had been made at a session of the City Council, in the course of public debate devoted to the future functioning of the Knyszyn School Complex. The applicant's lawyer considered that, by holding the applicant criminally responsible for his statements, the domestic courts had failed to strike a fair balance in weighing the interests of K.Ch.'s right to respect for his private life and the right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention. In this respect she considered that in the present case there had been no element of “pressing social need”. Finally, she criticised the provisions which provide for criminal sanction for defamation without leaving any room for exceptions for matters of public debate; in her view such a construction of responsibility for defamation deprived the public debate of any sense.


27.  The Government agreed that the applicant’s conviction and the fines imposed on her constituted an interference with her right to  <mask>. However, the interference had a basis in Finnish law, in particular in Chapter 24, section 8, of the Penal Code which fulfilled the criteria of precision, clarity and foreseeability. The applicant and the publisher had consulted a lawyer before publishing the book and they had thus been aware of the legal risks connected with the publication. The interference was thus “prescribed by law” and pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the private life and reputation of others.


50.  The Government did not contest the authenticity of the letter that had been sent by Mr Mişin to the Prosecutor General. However, they argued that there had been no interference with the applicant’s right to  <mask> because he was not the author of the articles that had been published in the Jurnal de Chişinău and had not been dismissed for exercising his freedom of expression but simply for breaching the internal regulations of the Prosecutor General’s Office. In their view, since the applicant’s complaints were in essence related to his labour rights, Article 10 was inapplicable.


28.  The applicant company complained under Article 10 of the Convention that the restrictions on its right to  <mask> in its case had not been prescribed by law as the Penal Code provision applied had not defined adequately the scope of private life. Nor had the restrictions been necessary in a democratic society for the protection of the reputation or rights of others. B. had not been an innocent bystander but had participated actively in the incident of 4 December 1996. The public had a right to know about issues of public interest, especially since the case had been very newsworthy. Moreover, the information in the articles had in every respect been correct.


53.  The applicant maintained that his article concerned the irregularities in the Wrocław judiciary which was an issue of public interest. He argued that the main duty of a journalist was to collect journalistic material with due diligence; however, there was no obligation to prove the truthfulness of all acquired information.  <mask> would be undermined if only those facts that could be proven were publishable. A particular example of this was when a journalist wrote an article about a person who was subject to criminal proceedings. In such a case, the journalist could not have known the eventual result of the proceedings at the time of writing. This was the situation in the applicant’s case. After the publication of his articles, several sets of proceedings were opened against the members of the local judiciary. The proceedings against prosecutor R.M. for forgery had been discontinued on 2 March 2005. On 19 November 2001, a bill of indictment was lodged against bailiff M.K. accusing him of theft and forgery.


27.  The Government did not dispute the fact that the applicants' conviction for the offence of handling information protected by the secrecy of a judicial investigation or by a duty of professional confidence constituted interference with their right to  <mask>. In their opinion, that interference was prescribed by law, namely by Articles 226-13 and 321-1 of the Criminal Code, which fulfilled the conditions of accessibility and foreseeability required by the Court (see Fressoz and Roire v. France [GC], no. 29183/95, ECHR 1999‑I). The Government considered, however, that the interference constituted a measure that was necessary in a democratic society for the protection of the reputation or rights of others and for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. Without disputing the fact that the aim of the applicants' work had been to inform the general public about an affair of state that was of interest to public opinion, they considered that it prejudiced the presumption of innocence in respect of G.M. The publication of the book just a few days after the death of François Mitterrand had given it a certain commercial and media impact, thereby increasing the prejudice sustained by G.M. Moreover, the affair had been a very sensitive one and the book had contained precise reproductions of a number of documents from the case file.


26.  The Government did not dispute that the libel proceedings and the sanctions imposed on the applicants constituted an interference with their  <mask>. They argued that the interference was necessitated by a pressing social need, namely the protection of the reputation and rights of others, and that the sanction imposed was proportionate. The domestic courts had complied with the requirements of Article 10 of the Convention, considered the distinction between statements of fact and value judgments, and concluded that the statements of the second applicant were devoid of any factual basis. Referring to the Court’s judgments in the cases of Krasulya v. Russia (no. 12365/03, 22 February 2007), and Kudeshkina v. Russia (no. 29492/05, 26 February 2009), the Government contended that even if the paragraphs in question were expressing a value judgment the second applicant lacked “good faith” in the exercise of his journalistic duties by failing to rely on any facts.


59.  The applicant maintained that the interference had not been “necessary in the democratic society” because the domestic courts had failed to respect the principle of proportionality between the restriction of  <mask> and the objective set out in Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. In particular, he had been sanctioned for criticism of a member of the government in respect of whom the limits of acceptable criticism should be wider than in respect of a private individual. He further argued that a free political debate is the core concept of a democratic society, that the discussions about political issues deserve a greater protection than non-political discussions and that, consequently, the State has very narrow margins for restricting such expression.


69.  The applicant company argued that the interference with its  <mask> – including its right to store information and to enable users to impart their opinions – was not prescribed by law. It submitted that there was no legislation or case-law stating that an intermediary was to be considered a publisher of content which it was not aware of. On the contrary, the applicable law expressly prohibited the imposition of liability on service providers for third-party content. In this connection, the applicant company referred to the Directive on electronic commerce, the Estonian Information Society Services Act and the Council of Europe Declaration on freedom of communication on the Internet. The Directive provided for limited and notice-based liability with take-down procedures for illegal content. Service providers were exempted from liability where, upon obtaining actual knowledge of illegal activities, they acted expeditiously to remove or disable access to the information concerned. Such removal or disabling of access had to be undertaken in the observance of the principle of freedom of expression and of procedures established for this purpose at national level (Recital 46 of the Preamble to the Directive). The applicant company argued that this law was indisputably formulated with sufficient precision to enable a citizen to regulate his conduct. According to the applicant company, its behaviour had been in full compliance with the applicable law as it had removed the defamatory comments the same day it had been notified by the original plaintiff.


56.  The Government argued that the application was manifestly ill‑founded. The complaint was essentially about the magnitude of the damages assessed by the jury, but that was a factual determination by the High Court that should not now be revisited. The decisive issue was whether domestic law contained sufficient safeguards for  <mask> in the context of defamation. It had already been established in the Independent News and Media case that the requisite safeguards were present in domestic law. The proceedings in the present case had begun only four years after this Court’s assessment of the domestic system in that case. The applicant company had not suggested that the domestic courts had misapplied the relevant jurisprudential principles, nor had it put forward any reason for the Court to depart from its previous positive assessment of the safeguards provided by Irish law.


37.  The Government pointed out that the interference with the applicant’s rights had been lawful and had aimed at protecting the rights and the reputation of K.T. In addition, it had been “necessary in a democratic society” within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention for the following reasons: the article expressly cited by the applicant when making his impugned statement about Freemasonry only presumed K.T.’s affiliation with the Freemason order; as to K.T.’s connections with the former secret services, the applicant’s allegation had been disproved by official documents; the above meant that the applicant had clearly made untrue statements, without having genuinely tried to verify them; he had, in addition, not sought K.T.’s preliminary opinion; the domestic courts had given sufficient reasons when establishing the untruthfulness of the applicant’s allegations and the damage suffered by K.T. on that account; they had, moreover, conducted a balancing exercise, taking into account the applicant’s right to  <mask>; the applicant had not been prosecuted for having committed the criminal offenses of insult or libel, but had only been held civilly liable; and finally, the domestic proceedings had been adversarial and the applicant had been legally represented.


25.  The applicant claimed that, as an academic, he had fulfilled his duty to inform scientific circles and the public at large about the weaknesses of the discipline in which he taught. In his statements, he had not mentioned the name of the plaintiff, but even if he had done so, this was not a valid reason to restrict his right to  <mask>. In any event, the opinions expressed by him had had a factual basis given that the plaintiff had been dismissed from his post on account of inadequate scientific competence and personal values. The applicant concluded therefore that there was no pressing social need capable of justifying the interference in question and that it was not proportionate to the aim pursued.


31.  The applicant stressed that under the relevant provisions of the Press Act of 1984, in particular its Article 34, he was, as an editor-in-chief, under an obligation to publish official communiqués issued by the highest State authorities. Furthermore, he was not to be held responsible for the contents of such communiqués. The applicant further relied on principles established in the case-law of the Convention organs concerning  <mask>, which constituted one of the essential foundations of a democratic society.


34.  The Government alleged that the disciplinary sanction had been imposed on the applicant because he had left his city of residence without the authorities’ permission. The sanction was not connected to the applicant’s views or any remarks he might have made during the programme in question, or to his  <mask>. The applicant could have conveyed the opinions which he had expressed during the programme through an article or a statement.


63.  The Government submitted that the right to hold demonstrations inside the premises of public institutions was not unlimited (see Appleby and Others v. the United Kingdom, no. 44306/98, § 47, ECHR 2003‑VI). They referred in this connection to Article 9 § 1 of the Law on Assembly and Demonstrations, which provided that no assembly or demonstration could be held, inter alia, in a building of a governmental institution (see paragraph 45 above). They stated that there had been alternative venues at the disposal of the applicants and their supporters, such as the courtyard of the University, where they could have organised their protest. They stressed in this connection the idea that a university, being an educational establishment, was exclusively devoted to providing educational services; therefore, if the Government were to allow unrestricted demonstrations on its premises it would put a disproportionate burden on the educational establishment, jeopardising its proper functioning. They thus maintained that in the instant case, no interference with the applicants’ right to  <mask> and peaceful assembly had taken place at all.


66.  The applicant company argued that in today’s world, Internet media content was increasingly created by the users themselves. User-generated content was of high importance – comments on news stories and articles often raised serious debates in society and even informed journalists of issues that were not publicly known, thereby contributing to the initiation of journalistic investigations. The possibility for “everyone” to contribute to public debate advanced democracy and fulfilled the purposes of  <mask> in the best possible way. It was a great challenge in this setting to hold those who infringed the rights of others accountable while avoiding censorship.


51.  The Government disagreed with this claim and submitted that any damage caused to the applicant was the result of its own unethical, non-professional and abusive conduct which gravely insulted the State. The applicant was sanctioned after the courts duly balanced the interests at stake, including the particular role that the right to  <mask> plays in a democratic society. Moreover, the applicant’s administration should hardly have been shocked by the sanction since they had been warned to stop publishing the relevant materials and the law clearly included the possibility of a court order for the closure of a newspaper. In addition, the applicant did not prove that its failure to fulfil its contractual obligations had affected in any way its reputation. Finally, the Government submitted that in a number of previous cases where a violation of Article 10 had been established the Court rejected any just satisfaction claims, declaring that a finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction.


32.  The Government acknowledged that the decisions of the domestic courts amounted to an interference with the applicants’ right to  <mask>. They were of the view that that the interference was prescribed by law and pursued a legitimate aim. The assertions made in the article concerned the conduct of a politician. It was accepted in the Court’s case-law that the limits of acceptable criticism were wider with regard to a politician than with regard to a private individual. Where, as in the present case, journalists considered that it was their duty to alert public opinion to an important issue in the general interest, namely the alleged acceptance of a bribe, they were under an obligation to provide a sufficient factual basis for their allegations. The domestic courts had accepted, having regard to the fact that the applicants referred in their pleadings to their freedom of expression, that they had been motivated by the protection of the general interest. Moreover, the courts had focused on the essential aspect of the case, namely on the allegations of corruption advanced by the applicants.


162.  The Government maintained that any interference was justified and proportionate. It was confined to preventing certain conduct by reason of its adverse impact, or potentially adverse impact, on others and on the public order, in a public context. They further emphasised that any person who exercised  <mask> undertook duties and responsibilities that included the obligation to avoid expressions which were offensive to others and which did not contribute to any form of public debate capable of furthering progress in human affairs. The Government were of the view that the applicant had failed to act consistently with this principle.


26.  The applicant complained under Articles 6, 7, 10 and 13 of the Convention that his conviction by the domestic courts for aggravated defamation had infringed his right to  <mask>. The Court, being master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of the case, will consider this complaint solely under Article 10 of the Convention, which reads as follows:


19.  The Government agreed that the facts of the case disclosed an interference with the applicants' right to  <mask>. The interference was nevertheless justified under Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. The applicants had been ordered to pay non-pecuniary damages for defamation on the basis of Articles 7 and 7 § 1 of the Civil Code. The interference had thus been “prescribed by law” and the law was accessible and foreseeable. It had served the legitimate aim of protecting the dignity of Mr Stepaniuc; furthermore, the measure had been necessary in a democratic society.


23.  The applicant maintained his allegations. In his observations, he observed, in particular, that the object of section 81 (c) of Law no. 2820 was to prevent the creation of minorities, and that therefore it did not cover the language of an existing minority, the Kurds. He further submitted that the mere fact that certain delegates at the party meeting spoke in Kurdish could not be construed as having served the aim of creating a minority. The applicant insisted that the relevant provisions of Law no. 2820 were incompatible with the Constitution and the Treaty of Lausanne. He maintained that the content of the speeches had been within the scope of  <mask> and that the mere fact that the party delegates had chosen to speak in a language which had been better understood by most of the participants at the meeting was not in breach of the Constitution or international treaties. In this connection, the applicant emphasised that HAK‑PAR was a party representing Kurds. He was of the view that the interference with his rights and freedoms resulted from a desire to prevent Kurds from using their own language and, thus, to diminish Kurdish culture and language.


36.  The Government accepted that the applicants’ arrest at the site of the public event and their administrative convictions had constituted an interference with their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and their right to  <mask>. Such an interference constitutes a breach of Articles 10 and/or 11 of the Convention unless it is prescribed by law, pursues one or more legitimate aims under paragraph 2 of each Article, and is “necessary in a democratic society”.


40.  The applicant argued that her aim was to inform the public about the ideas and attitudes of the mayor and about certain irregularities in the exercise of his office. Her letter concerned matters of public concern and she acted in good faith as a representative of society and of the political opposition. The applicant, drawing similarities with the case of Castells v. Spain, argued that the interference with the  <mask> of an opposition member called for the closest scrutiny. The applicant admitted that her letter contained harsh criticism of the mayor; however it was a response to the mayor’s appeal in which he claimed that the Regional Audit Chambers were unconstitutional and that they were undertaking activities comparable to Stalin’s regime. In the applicant’s opinion, the language used by the mayor was provocative and harsh, while her response was very balanced and subtle. Only the last sentence of the letter contained strong language. The authorities did not properly balance the need to protect the reputation of the mayor and the general interest served by criticism aimed at those exercising power.


50.  The applicant disagreed with the argument that the requirement to obtain the authorisation, strengthened as it had been at the material time and remained afterwards, served only the purposes of good journalistic practice. He stressed that the legal requirement to ask for authorisation and obtain it, reinforced by a criminal sanction, did not exist in the legislation of any other Council of Europe countries. Such a requirement amounted in itself to a disproportionate interference with  <mask>; all the more so when it was, in addition, protected by a criminal sanction. Such a sanction had been imposed on the applicant in the instant case.


83.  The Government rejected the applicants' argument that the ability of multinational corporations, such as McDonald's, to defend their reputations by bringing defamation claims amounted to a disproportionate restriction on the ability of individuals to exercise their right to  <mask>. They denied that there was a parallel to be drawn with the position under domestic law whereby government bodies and political parties are unable to sue for defamation: this bar was justified for the protection of the democratic process, which required free, critical expression. The reputation of a large company might be vital for its commercial success, and the commercial success of companies of all sizes was important to society for a variety of reasons, such as fostering wealth creation, expanding the tax base and creating employment. Furthermore, the applicants' proposal that “multinational companies” should have no legal protection for their reputations was unworkably vague and it would be difficult to draft and operate legislation to that effect. Their alternative suggestion, that multinationals should have to prove loss, was also misconceived. The vindication of a plaintiff's reputation was a legitimate aim in itself and it would place enormous evidential burdens on both sides if economic loss were to become a material issue.


29.  The applicant also argued that the authorities had not taken into account the principles of the Convention when deciding the case. Firstly, the importance of  <mask> in the process of democratic elections had not been given due consideration. Secondly, the courts had failed to notice that both parties were politicians, whose reputation and good name should be given lesser protection.


22.  The applicant company claimed that it could not have foreseen that the Hungarian courts would consider hyperlinking to constitute dissemination. Accordingly, the applicant company could not have foreseen that, by including the hyperlink in the article, it would be found liable for defamation and ordered to remove the hyperlink, publish excerpts of the judgment and pay legal costs. The Government conceded that there had been interference with the applicant company’s  <mask>, but argued that this interference had been lawful and proportionate in the light of the prevailing doctrine of objective liability in this field of law in Hungary.


20.  The applicants submitted that the interference with their right to  <mask> had not been necessary in a democratic society as it had not been justified by a pressing social need. They maintained that what was at stake in the present case was not purely commercial interests but participation in a general debate. In such cases the existence of particularly strong reasons for restricting the freedom of the press in a democratic society was necessary and the national margin of appreciation was limited.


31.  The applicant, while agreeing with the Government that the interference had been “prescribed by law” and had pursued the legitimate aim of the protection of the reputation or rights of others, contended that it had not been proportionate. He argued that the domestic courts had taken neither his position nor that of the plaintiff into consideration. In his view, his being an editor of a newspaper and a journalist meant that the interference into his right of  <mask> should have been assessed in the light of the important role the press plays in a democratic society. At the same time, Mr Fedorov was not a State servant, but a member of the Bryansk Region Duma, that is a public figure, who had to display a greater degree of tolerance to public criticism. Furthermore, rather than bringing proceedings for defamation, it had been open to the plaintiff to react to the applicant’s article by making a statement to the media.


23.  The applicants complained under Articles 6 and 10 of the Convention that their conviction following the publication of a newspaper article had not been fair and had amounted to unjustified interference with their right to  <mask>. Having regard to the circumstances of the case, the Court considers that this complaint does not raise a separate issue under Article 6 of the Convention and falls to be examined solely under Article 10 of the Convention, which reads as follows:


75.  The Government also pointed out that at the initial stage of the criminal proceedings the competent investigating authority could have resorted to the procedure under section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Law and sought a disclosure order from a court. However, they chose not to do this and other investigative activities followed and the alleged perpetrator was identified by other means. The Government wished to emphasise that the domestic authorities deliberately chose to pursue a more time‑consuming course of investigation, thus clearly demonstrating their respect for  <mask> and the rights of journalists not to disclose their sources. The Government held the view that the competent authorities had properly balanced the conflicting interests of the protection of journalistic privilege against those of the criminal investigation.


31.  The applicant concluded that the authorities had overstepped the margin of appreciation afforded to them. Moreover, the national courts’ findings had been based on an assessment of the relevant facts which could not be considered reasonable and justified and failed to interpret the matter in the light of the principles set forth in Article 10 of the Convention. Thus, punishing the applicant for having published the interview in question was a disproportionate interference with his right to  <mask> and constituted a violation of the Convention.


59.  The Government further maintained that the domestic courts had given relevant and sufficient reasons for their decisions. The sanctions imposed on the applicants were proportionate as they had been held liable only under the civil law. The applicants were ordered to publish an apology and to pay the costs of the claimant and the court fees. They did not have to pay compensation. In the Government’s view, the domestic courts struck a fair balance between the restriction of the applicants’  <mask> and the protection of W.D.’s reputation.


53.  The applicant complained that the existence of Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code interfered with his right to  <mask>. He maintained that the mere fact that an investigation could potentially be brought against him under this provision for his scholarly work on the Armenian issue caused him great stress, apprehension and fear of prosecution and thus constituted a continuous and direct violation of his rights under Article 10 of the Convention, which reads as follows:


31.  The applicants complained that the criminal proceedings before the Ankara National Security Court were unfair, that that court was not independent and impartial, and of infringements of their  <mask> and freedom of association; they also asserted that in the enjoyment of the rights thus breached they had been the victims of discrimination on the ground of their political opinions.


41.  The Government submitted that the interference with the applicants’ right to  <mask> had been lawful in that it had been based on the clear, accessible and foreseeable provisions of the domestic law, namely, on Article 7 of the Civil Code of 1963, section 47 of the Information Act of 2 October 1992, and sections 1, 32 and 42 of the Printed Mass Media (Press) Act of 16 November 1992, as applied by the national courts in the applicants’ case.


63.  The applicant complained of a violation of his right to freedom of speech. He maintained that as a serviceman he had been responsible for many years for giving legal advice to the Commander of the Armed Forces on the question of statutory penalties. His opinion on the statutory penalties the army imposed on soldiers often did not correspond to that of others at the Ministry of Defence. The applicant stated that he had made many proposals with the aim of improving, inter alia, servicemen’s procedural rights when the new Army Disciplinary Statute was being drafted. As his superiors and the State President had failed to take his proposals into account, the applicant had contacted the Kauno Diena daily and expressed his ideas to the press. The internal inquiry into his communication with the daily had been started the same day. Even though that inquiry had later been discontinued by the authorities’ acknowledgement that the applicant had not violated military discipline, the appeal to Kauno Diena and to the State President had had direct consequences for the applicant. He was dismissed from professional military service before the expiry of his contract. Most importantly, in order to avoid accusations of interference with  <mask>, the authorities at the Ministry of Defence chose to dismiss him not on the ground that he had appealed to the media, but formally, on the basis of Article 38 § 1 (7) of LMS, thus leaving no official trace of injustice. If that provision had been applied to others in the same manner, several hundred soldiers would have been dismissed from service, however none of them except the applicant had suffered the same consequences. The example of four soldiers (R.L., V.S., J.Š. and M.I.) he relied on during the administrative court proceedings confirmed that there were more soldiers who should have been dismissed from the army, but that this was not done. Lastly, he also challenged as misleading the two examples provided by the Government (see paragraphs 41 and 42 above).


19.  The applicants complained under Article 10 of the Convention that the criminal proceedings brought against them under section 7(2) of Law no. 3713, and their subsequent conviction, had constituted a violation of their right to  <mask>. Referring, in particular, to the Court’s judgments in Gül and Others v. Turkey (no. 4870/02, 8 June 2010) and Faruk Temel v. Turkey (no. 16853/05, 1 February 2011), the applicants claimed that their conviction was not necessary in a democratic society.


4.  The applicant did what he did. Under domestic law the Speaker of Parliament should have called him to order or excluded him from the remainder of that day’s sitting. It appears that that would probably have been in line (or at least I hope so) with Karácsony and Others (cited above), where the Court in no way objected to (albeit without explicitly approving) the respondent Government’s arguments that “clearly abusive speech or conduct of an MP nullifies the protection of his or her right to  <mask> or may be considered an abuse of the right” (§ 155). But it was too late for such immediate intervention, as the Speaker seems not even to have noticed the indecent gesture at that moment (this part of Mr Szanyi’s performance lasted for only a second). But that gesture was noticed (and, as the minutes of the Parliament session of that day reveal, even applauded) by some other MPs and caught by the Parliament TV camera and the media. At some later point, having become aware of Mr Szanyi’s “non-verbal expression”, the Speaker proposed to impose on him the sanction provided for in section 48 of the Parliament Act. Had the sanction been not applied, it would have been most surprising – not because Mr Szanyi was a member of opposition, but because of the very nature of his “non-verbal expression” and its connotations.


26.  The Government asserted that the interference with the applicant's  <mask> was prescribed by law, namely by Article 11 (e) of Law no. 2935 dated 25 October 1983, and that it pursued the legitimate aims of preventing disorder and crime and protecting national security as permitted by Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. They maintained that the measure taken against the newspaper was within the authorities' margin of appreciation and that it was justified given the specific circumstances of the case. They submitted in this connection that vital interests of the State were at stake and that the decision to ban was in response to a pressing social need and was proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued.


89.  The Government submitted that there had been no violation of the applicants’ rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and to  <mask>, as the relevant domestic authorities had not impeded their public gathering in any manner. On the contrary, the applicants and other participants of the demonstration were able to assemble freely near the Tbilisi Concert Hall and then proceeded with their march. As the organiser of the event had given a prior warning, the Ministry of the Interior deployed police units to the scene of the event. Police patrol vehicles escorted the LGBT marchers. As to the manner in which the police reacted to the clash between the marchers and counter-demonstrators, the Government admitted that that reaction had been somewhat delayed. However, they claimed that that had been done on purpose and in the marchers’ best interests. Thus, the Government asserted that where a serious threat of a violent counter-demonstration exists, the domestic authorities have wide discretion in the choice of means to employ to protect assemblies. They referred to the Court’s case-law in Plattform “Ärzte für das Leben” (cited above, § 34). Considering the large number of counter-demonstrators and their aggressive attitude towards the demonstrators, immediate preventive measures by the police could have provoked an even greater outburst of violence. Nevertheless, the law-enforcement officers remained at the scene and instantly intervened when the verbal attacks degenerated into actual physical violence by evacuating the attacked applicants from the scene. The police officers also separated the opposing parties by standing between them, verbally warning both sides to behave in an appropriate manner. As regards the applicants’ complaints of discriminatory intent under Article 14 of the Convention, the Government limited their response to noting that that provision was complementary and could not be invoked autonomously in the absence of a violation under Articles 10 and 11.


27.  The applicant emphasised that the domestic courts had convicted him of the offence of using a totalitarian symbol. While it is true that for a probationary period of one year the Hungarian courts had refrained from imposing a criminal sanction, in his view it was beyond doubt that there had been an interference with his  <mask>, since his criminal liability had been established.


52.  The Government were of the view that there had been no interference with the exercise by the applicants of their  <mask>. They thus pointed out that Radio M Plus had not engaged in any activity in the period 2002-2004, in view of the unlawful assignments of the rights to licence no. 246/1997 (see paragraph 32 above). They further observed that the material in the file showed that the second applicant had worked as a journalist for the national daily România liberă in October 2002. Similarly, there had been nothing to prevent the first applicant from writing in a newspaper or preparing television programmes.


98.  The Government submitted that the present case differed from the Leempoel & S.A. ED. Ciné Revue v. Belgium case (no. 64772/01, 9 November 2006) in that it concerned the audio-visual media in relation to Article 19 of the Constitution, rather than the print media in relation to Article 25. The extremely severe penalties referred to in the above-mentioned case were not applicable to the audio-visual media, whose  <mask> was governed exclusively by Article 19 of the Constitution, a provision that did not prohibit censorship in such absolute terms as Article 25 did. That being so, Article 19 allowed a preventive system to operate with regard to freedom of expression, subject to certain fundamental conditions. In order to assess the level of acceptability of a preventive measure in a democratic State, a clear distinction had to be made between arbitrary intervention on the part of the executive and a situation where the courts were called upon to intervene at the request of a party in the context of a dispute between two private individuals, with a limit on the duration of any prior restraints.


36.  The applicant in the present case held a picket in front of a regional court. Some time later he was found administratively liable and fined for having breached the procedure for organising and holding a public assembly. The Court considers that the administrative prosecution amounted to an interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of assembly, interpreted in the light of his right to  <mask>. Accordingly, its task is to determine whether the interference was justified.


69.  The applicant alleged that the restrictions on his  <mask> imposed as a condition of his house arrest had been unlawful. He pointed out, in particular, that Article 107 § 7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure set out an exhaustive list of possible restrictions during house arrest, which did not include a ban on public comments. He argued that the ban on commenting on the particular criminal case had been excessive and contrary to the public interest, given the high profile of those proceedings. Moreover, the Investigation Committee had made numerous comments about the case in the media. According to the applicant, the restriction had seriously impeded his public and professional activities, in particular his participation in the political debate, and had been imposed without any justification.


55.  The Government firstly argued that the applicant’s detention and the administrative fine imposed on him by the prosecutor’s decision of 15 August 2007 had not amounted to an interference with his right to  <mask>. They considered that the applicant had not acted in his capacity as a journalist, because he had gathered and shared not information of public interest but military intelligence concerning operations of the Romanian army in Afghanistan.


32.  The applicant complained that the first-instance judgment of 21 May 2003 (as rectified by the decision of 12 July 2005) and the second-instance judgment of 8 November 2005 had violated his freedom of thought and  <mask>. In particular, he complained that he had been ordered to pay damages for tarnishing A.H.’s reputation, although he had never used the word “machinations” to describe A.H.’s actions, had not authorised publication of the content of the telephone conversation between him and Dr I.V., and even though the second article did not accurately reflect the content of that conversation. He relied on Articles 9 and 10 of the Convention.


55.  The applicant claimed 30,000 euros (EUR) in non-pecuniary damages for the distress he had suffered as a result of the violation of his  <mask>. He submitted that the criminal proceedings against him and his conviction had injured his reputation among his relatives, friends and colleagues in the legal community, and had had a negative impact on his health. Furthermore, he had had to suffer the humiliation of a public reprimand, which had been read before his colleagues. Finally, his conviction had resulted in his having been reduced in rank and salary for six months at the Ministry of Justice.


51.  The Government submitted that the applicant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies by failing to lodge a constitutional complaint challenging the compatibility of Article 52 (2) of the Code of Medical Ethics with the Constitution. They argued that on 23 April 2008 the Constitutional Court had declared unconstitutional an interpretation of this provision which penalised doctors for making a truthful public assessment of the conduct of another doctor which was in the public interest. The relevant provision, examined in its wording which came into force in 2003, had not been quashed by the Constitutional Court as only its overly strict interpretation had been considered to breach the constitutional norms securing the  <mask> (see paragraph 49 above).


42.  The Government, while acknowledging the essential role played by the press as a “public watchdog”, asserted that in the present case the interference with the applicant company’s  <mask> had been necessary within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. They argued in particular that the domestic courts had had to weigh the applicant company’s interest in imparting information on an issue of public interest against the right to protection of the most intimate sphere of life of the person on whom it reported, which was equally protected by the Convention, namely, the right to respect for his or her identity, protected by Article 8 as part of a person’s private life. The necessity to carry out such a weighing of interests was laid down in section 7 of the Media Act.


43.  The applicants submitted that the present case, as well as other Supreme Court judgments restricting  <mask> in the media, had received attention in Finland. A public debate had taken place, in which those judgments had been criticised. Furthermore, in December 2005 the Supreme Court had decided a case (no. 2005:136; see paragraph 31 above) which concerned another article published in the Alibi magazine. In that case, the majority of the Supreme Court judges had taken the view that the magazine had been entitled to publish the name of a convicted criminal. The incompatibility of that Supreme Court judgment with its judgment in the present case was, in itself, sufficient reason to find a violation. The applicants also observed that it was difficult for the Finnish media to report on legal proceedings because the domestic courts’ decisions had made it difficult to predict when disclosure of the identity of a defendant or convicted person was within the sphere of freedom of expression and the public nature of legal proceedings and when, in contrast, disclosure constituted a criminal offence giving rise to a liability to pay damages. In the present case the Supreme Court had not even mentioned the Convention or Article 10 thereof. The names of accused and convicted persons were published daily in the Finnish media. There were no legal provisions defining when a defendant’s identity could be revealed. In the present case, the applicant’s actions had complied with the Guidelines for Journalists and no complaints had been lodged with the Mass Media Council (julkisen sanan neuvosto, opinionsnämnden för massmedier).


40.  The applicant complained that there had been an unjustified interference with his  <mask>, in breach of Article 10 of the Convention. In addition, in the application form, the applicant made lengthy and detailed submissions criticising the manner in which the proceedings had been conducted before the first-instance court, especially the appointment of experts and admission of evidence and the manner in which the first‑instance court and the Court of Cassation had assessed the evidence and the applicable procedural rules. In this connection, the applicant emphasised what he described as the inappropriate way in which the domestic courts had praised the plaintiff in their decisions. In his view these flaws in the proceedings demonstrated that the domestic courts lacked the requisite impartiality vis-à-vis the plaintiff, and that they had been unduly influenced by his status. He claimed a violation of his rights under Articles 6 and 14 of the Convention.


21.  The applicant complained that the domestic courts’ decisions imposing sanctions on him for expressing his views concerning a demonstration, which had been organised by the trade union of which he was the chairman, had violated his right to  <mask> within the meaning of Article 10 of the Convention. This provision in so far as relevant reads as follows:


7.  The applicant was, moreover, ordered to pay damages to the tune of EUR 5,000 (see paragraph 16 of the judgment). The Court has repeatedly noted the chilling effect that a fear of sanction has on the exercise of  <mask>. Although the applicant has not shown what his financial situation was at the time and whether or not he struggled to pay that amount, we are of the view that, in the circumstances, the sanction imposed was capable of having a “chilling”, dissuasive effect on the applicant’s exercise of his right to freedom of expression (see, for instance, Lombardo and Others v. Malta, no. 7333/06, § 61, 24 April 2007, and Ghiulfer Predescu v. Romania, no. 29751/09, § 61, 27 June 2017).


31.  The Government argued that the interference with the applicant’s right to  <mask> had been justified in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 10. It had a legal basis in section 1 (1) of the Disciplinary Act taken in conjunction with section 9 of the Lawyers Act and served the legitimate aims of protecting the reputation and rights of others and the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.


30.  The Government did not dispute that the convictions in issue constituted “interference” with the applicants’ exercise of their right to  <mask>. However, they submitted that the interference had had a clear and foreseeable basis in law. Article 179 bis protected actual conversations and Article 179 ter protected spontaneous comments. They applied both to the intimate and private sphere, to the right to one’s own image and to the non-disclosure of one’s own comments, and pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the reputation and rights of others.


25.  The Government argued that according to the “quotation case-law” of the Austrian courts, the publication of a statement which satisfies the definition of an offence may lead to sanctions against the medium concerned unless there is any objective reason, such as e.g. the protection by a basic right, justifying such statement. In the present case, having carefully weighed the  <mask> against the protection of the reputation of others, the second instance court set out comprehensively the arguments in favour of the application of section 33 of the Media Act. It rightly considered that the statement “spiritually depraved” amounted to an offence and violated the concerned person's right to reputation. Referring to case-law of the Court of Appeal, the Government asserted that the correct quotation of an insult of one person by another person was protected by Article 10 of the Convention and did not justify forfeiture. In the present case, however, the applicant company had not reported about the pending defamation proceedings in a neutral way but had identified itself with the content of the quoted statements. The Government referred in this regard to the Court of Appeal's findings as regards the structure and style of the article and, furthermore, to the article's subtitle which wording between the lines in their opinion called the rejection of the reproach of being “spiritually depraved” into question. A victim's right would be almost completely void without an adequate protection against abuse of quotations, if a medium was free to publish and add to defamation by third persons. The applicant company had not been deprived of the possibility to inform the public about the fact that criminal proceedings against Mr Heller were pending. Finally, the forfeiture was principally a safeguarding measure containing elements of minor punishment. It appeared proportionate as most of the issues of the weekly magazine had, in any way, already been published. The applicant company had not sufficiently substantiated the alleged damage resulting from the forfeiture.


19.  The Government contested their argument. They claimed at the outset that the applicants did not have victim status, within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention, given that the pronouncement of their conviction had been suspended. They further submitted that the interference with the applicants’  <mask> had been prescribed by law, and had pursued the legitimate aims of maintaining national security and public safety as well as the prevention of disorder and crime. The Government claimed that the interference with the applicants’ freedom of expression had been necessary in a democratic society. According to the Government, by referring to Abdullah Öcalan as a “leading figure” and an interlocutor for the State of Turkey, the applicants had conveyed to the public the idea that their client was still active. Moreover, their statements contained expressions referring to the strategy of a terrorist organisation. Noting that the applicants had not been imprisoned or subjected to any other restrictions, the Government contended that the interference in question had therefore not been disproportionate to the legitimate aims pursued.


31.  The Government submitted that the applicant’s assertions, which directly concerned his former employer, were statements of fact rather than value judgments. They were of the view that the mere existence of labour and criminal proceedings instituted against the plaintiff could not serve as a basis for the applicant’s allegations or justify statements violating the former’s good reputation. They also pointed out that the Contracting States enjoyed a certain margin of appreciation when limiting the rights enshrined in Article 10. The Government were of the view that, since the applicant’s declarations were statements of fact capable of harming S.K.’s reputation, he had overstepped the Convention limits of  <mask>.


45.  The applicant further submitted that, for a newspaper, a refusal to publish a rectification was a matter of editorial policy and an aspect of the freedom to provide information. The freedom to choose and pursue editorial policy fell within the scope of the  <mask>. The order to publish the rectification requested by the mayor and the applicant’s criminal conviction had violated that freedom.


47.  The applicant, while conceding that termination of an employment relationship without notice under Article 626 § 1 of the Civil Code could pursue the legitimate aim of protecting the reputation or rights of others, namely, the business reputation and interests of Vivantes, argued that the said provision did not contain any criteria for a lawful dismissal in the event of whistle-blowing on the part of an employee. The related decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court of 2 July 2001 and the Federal Labour Court of 3 July 2003 (see “Relevant domestic law and practice” above) did not amount to comprehensive and established case-law in this regard. The conditions for dismissal without notice on the ground that an employee has filed a criminal complaint against his or her employer were not sufficiently foreseeable and the resulting interference with the applicant’s right to  <mask> had thus not been “prescribed by law” within the meaning of Article 10 § 2.


25.  The applicants claimed that the question of whether or not there had been a rape ultimately had no significance when assessing the necessity to restrict  <mask>, as the applicants had had good grounds for publishing the case at the time of the publication: the applicants had relied on a number of sources including a written statement submitted by the rape victim and verified by two witnesses, the article had dealt with a serious criminal offence, and although the rape suspicions had also been known to the local police, no investigation had been started. The article had not infringed the presumption of innocence of any of the players as no player had been mentioned by name. It had also become apparent from the article that the victim had not wanted the police to investigate the matter. The magazine had published a reply given by the players in its next issue in which all the players had denied being guilty of a crime.


29.  The applicants contested that assertion. They contended that the second applicant had been subject to an order to pay compensation for something which had been written by her husband. Given the situation, one could not fail to consider that the  <mask> of the first applicant encompassed that of his spouse, given that she had been considered jointly responsible for it. Therefore, the second applicant had been the victim of a violation of Article 10 of the Convention for the purposes of Article 34.


34.  The applicants further submitted that the Federal Constitutional Court, by decision of 25 October 2005, had changed its case-law and let, in case of doubt, personality rights prevail over the right to  <mask>. Had the Federal Constitutional Court adjudicated the applicants' case at an earlier date, they would have profited from the more liberal standards applied before. The change of the Federal Constitutional Court's case-law had not been foreseeable for them.


86.  The applicants were obliged to pay the court fees, including the fee paid by the injured party for its legal representation (see paragraph 22 above), but no awards were made for non-pecuniary damage. However, it cannot be excluded that the court decision finding against the applicants in the present case might produce legal basis for a further legal action resulting a damage award. In any event, the Court is of the view that the decisive question when assessing the consequence for the applicants is not the absence of damages payable, but the manner in which Internet portals such as theirs can be held liable for third-party comments. Such liability may have foreseeable negative consequences on the comment environment of an Internet portal, for example by impelling it to close the commenting space altogether. For the Court, these consequences may have, directly or indirectly, a chilling effect on the  <mask> on the Internet. This effect could be particularly detrimental for a non-commercial website such as the first applicant (compare and contrast Delfi AS, cited above, § 161).


34.  The applicant pointed out that the Court of Appeal had not referred to the Court’s case-law nor balanced the applicant’s right to  <mask> against K.U.’s right to reputation. No reasons had been given as to why there had been a compelling social need to limit the applicant’s freedom of expression, nor had any reasons been given as to why such limitation had been considered proportionate vis-à-vis the legitimate aim relied on. The applicant claimed that the Government seemed to expect that there needed to be a ground for publishing information, while the Court’s case-law showed the opposite, namely that there needed to be a special ground for not publishing certain information. The present article could not insult K.U.’s honour, solely on the ground that the same information had been published in another evening newspaper in K.U.’s own words on the same date.


43.  The Government then contended that the necessity of the restriction on  <mask> did not relate only to the particular seriousness of the remarks and accusation, but also to a failure to comply with the requirements of good faith and the ethics of journalism. They pointed out that the journalist, in addition to the fact that she had made mistakes in dates, had not even tried to make contact with one of the investigating judges or a member of the public prosecutor’s office, and that in reporting comments by a representative of the union she had distorted them, had not struck the requisite balance between the different positions and had not carried out any research into the facts. Contrary to the applicants’ assertions, the Court did not exempt journalists from that duty of verification, since it had described this as an “ordinary” or “usual” obligation from which the media could be dispensed only on “special grounds” (see Pedersen and Baadsgaard, cited above, § 78), and had found that the more serious the allegation, the more solid the factual basis had to be. In this connection, it was appropriate to point out that the definition of “partialité” (bias), according to the Petit Robert dictionary, indicated about a person that they took a position for or against someone or something without any concern for justice or truth, and that the use of the term “rocambolesque” referred to a character described as “villainous” by the Encyclopædia Universalis. In the Government’s submission, the applicants had wrongly claimed that French case-law on interviews would be applicable, firstly because the offending article was not an interview but a report, and secondly because the case-law cited (Court of Cassation, Second Civil Division, 27 March 2003), concerning the prudence required of journalists reporting remarks by third parties, was pertinent only for journalists who were not actually the authors of the reported remark. It remained the case that a newspaper was not entitled to publish all kinds of remarks on the ground that they had been made by a third party, as the person liable for defamation under French law was the publication director or editor – in other words the person disseminating the defamatory statement. In those circumstances the case-law in Thoma (cited above) was not pertinent because the person prosecuted in that case was a journalist – the principal for the offence under Luxembourg law being the author of the offending article – and the Court had found a violation of Article 10 because the journalist had not been, and had not purported to be, the author of the statement. It could not be argued, as the applicants had done, that when any comment whatsoever had been made by a third party and reported with basic textual precautions, such as the use of inverted commas or the conditional tense, it was not reprehensible. Such reasoning would render paragraph 2 of Article 10 meaningless. In any event, the Government took the view that the newspaper Libération – contrary to other daily newspapers, such as Le Monde, from which they produced an article of 16 May 2000 – had not complied with the requirements of good faith or with the rules of ethics in journalism, by using bold type for the word “partialité” and thus deliberately drawing attention to the defamatory statement.


46.  The Government argued that the interference with the applicant’s right to  <mask> had been compatible with the terms of Article 10. The interference was prescribed by law, being based on Article 212 of the Criminal Code and pursued a legitimate aim, i.e. the protection of the reputation or rights of others. The statement that the mayor had put “extralegal pressure on the prosecution service” was directed against his personal dignity and had debased him.


43.  The Government argued that the applicant's complaints were incompatible with the provisions of the Convention ratione temporis. In particular, he had been found guilty and sentenced by the Municipal Court on 11 June 2003 and the respondent State had ratified the Convention on 3 March 2004. The “alleged interference” with the applicant's  <mask> had thus occurred prior to the ratification while the subsequent criminal and civil judgments merely allowed for its subsistence thereafter (see paragraphs 9, 13, 15 and 17 above).


27.  The Government did not dispute the fact that there was an interference with the applicant's  <mask>. However, they submitted that the applicant had not acted, as a journalist, in “good faith”. Insofar as the property declaration did not disclose how and when exactly the impugned assets had been acquired, the applicant, pursuant to section 24 § 2 of the Press and Media Act, should have investigated the issue further before imprudently implying in her article that the plaintiff had obtained the summer house and Tbilisi apartment corruptly during his political life. The Government stated that, contrary to the aim of the newspaper's rubric, the applicant's purpose was not to raise a public debate but to undermine Mr Lominadze's reputation.


77.  The Government noted that the purpose of the applicant’s apprehension had not been to hinder his  <mask> but to investigate the offence he was suspected of having committed. He had been able to use all the photographs he had taken at the event. The applicant’s apprehension and detention had thus been justifiable, necessary and proportionate as the police had been reacting to a violent demonstration for which there had existed a risk of further violence and disruption. The alleged interference was thus necessary in a democratic society.


30.  The applicants further submitted that Article 10 of the Convention protected not only the substance of the ideas and information expressed, but also the form in which they were conveyed. Journalistic freedom also covered possible recourse to a degree of exaggeration or even provocation.  <mask> applied not only to views deemed harmless or neutral, but also those which shocked, disturbed and offended. They referred to the Court’s judgment in the case of Handyside v. the United Kingdom, 7 December 1976, Series A no. 24).


51.  The applicant stated that the restrictions placed on his  <mask> by Article 8 of Law no. 3713 cannot be considered as proportionate, as they were applied to a wide range of topics and materials, the large majority of which, like the applicant, have nothing to do with inciting violence or advocating terrorism. He maintained that his publications contained material of an academic or otherwise serious and responsible nature, much of which consisted of documentation which was in the public arena. He further pointed out that the measures applied by the Government were extreme in so far as they consisted of criminal sanctions, attracting substantial prison sentences and fines.


21.  The applicant newspaper complained of a violation of its right to  <mask>. It relied on the Court's jurisprudence concerning the distinction between facts and value-judgments, the special role played by the press in a democratic society and the wider limits of acceptable criticism to which politicians knowingly subject themselves. It referred to the gravity of the penalty imposed by the courts, which was the highest possible under the law. It also noted that Mr Stepaniuc had lodged his complaint a year after the publication of the article and that Moldovan law did not provide for any time-limits in lodging such complaints, imposing a disproportionate burden on the media to keep records and evidence of past events long after they had happened. It finally relied on its good faith in dealing with an issue of genuine public interest.


59.  The Government admitted that the applicant’s  <mask> had been restricted. This restriction, however, had been in accordance with the applicable domestic law and had pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the reputation of others. The competent civil courts had also properly assessed the facts and adequately applied the relevant domestic legislation. The applicant’s allegation to the effect that her lawyer, Mr NB, had deliberately failed to represent her properly in a pending civil case, had been a statement of fact in support of which no credible evidence had ever been offered. This statement had likewise not been given in any constructive social context, but merely as an expression of the applicant’s personal dissatisfaction. Further, Mr NB, being a practising lawyer, could not have remained passive in the face of such serious allegations undermining his very livelihood. Finally, the Government argued that neither the sum which had been awarded to Mr NB by the civil courts, consistent with damages awarded in other similar cases, nor the manner of its subsequent enforcement could be deemed disproportionate. While, admittedly, the applicant’s pension had been low this could not have absolved her from paying for the profound damage caused to Mr NB. In any event, approximately one third of the total principal sum due to be paid by the applicant consisted of the costs incurred by Mr NB in the course of the civil and enforcement proceedings.


46.  The applicant maintained that she had been communicating only with authorities acting under professional secrecy and that she had been correct with the child’s father. She could not have committed any crime simply by seeking help and proper examination of her child’s case, as that was her duty. She had acted in good faith and on the advice of a social worker. Therefore the applicant’s right to  <mask> had been seriously violated when she was convicted of defamation.


51.  The Government conceded that the contested article had raised questions of public concern and that the limits of acceptable criticism in respect of Mr P., a civil servant, were wider than in the case of a private individual. They submitted, however, that the article had not been limited to criticism of Mr P.’s actions in an official capacity; it had also encroached on the private sphere, claiming that Mr P. had lovers. The Government disputed the applicants’ arguments that there had been no objective link between those statements and Mr P. The contested article had been entirely devoted to the activities of the Chief Federal Inspector Mr P. Taking into account the article’s title, structure and contents, there could be no doubt that the statements concerning the collector of funds had been directed at Mr P. Those statements had been intended as statements of fact and the applicants had failed to prove their truthfulness. Given that the statements published by the applicants were damaging to Mr P.’s honour and reputation, the interference with their  <mask> had been justified.


35.  The Government submitted further that the applicant company had also failed to give the judge in question, or the court she belonged to, the opportunity to respond to the accusations. Proper journalistic conduct would have required the author to give the judge or the court concerned, the latter through its spokesperson who communicated regularly with the media, an opportunity to comment. This had been all the more necessary given that the author of the article had not attended the trial at which the judgment which he had so vehemently criticised had been issued, but had merely informed himself by studying the case file. When weighing the right to  <mask> on the one hand against the protection of the reputation and impartiality of the judiciary on the other hand, the Austrian courts had in the present case explained, in a sufficient and relevant manner and following the case-law of the Court on this matter, why the protection of the reputation and independence of the judiciary had to be given precedence.


27.  The applicant submitted that the interference with his right to  <mask> was not necessary in a democratic society as it was not justified by a pressing social need. He emphasised that the language used by him had not overstepped the boundaries of admissible and civilised journalistic expression of criticism. The statements in question were not offensive and were not an intentional personal assault on that politician. The applicant’s intention was to highlight that politician’s incompetence in the context of upcoming local elections. Moreover, the statements were quoted after a well-known book by Laurence J. Peter, which could not be considered offensive.


22.  The Government argued that the applicant’s expressions fell outside the scope of protection of Article 10 of the Convention. In particular, it had been established in the domestic proceedings that the applicant had intended to insult E.P., as proven by the fact that he had accompanied the diffusion of the true facts with adverse judgments relating to her position in public office and inappropriate characterisations which had exceeded the limits of admissible criticism. The applicant’s words were susceptible of harming E.P.’s honour and reputation and therefore the applicant’s conviction could not be considered as an interference with his right to  <mask>.


29.  The applicant contended that the Internet publication rule restricted its ability to maintain a publicly accessible Internet archive. It pointed to the “chilling effect” that the rule had upon  <mask>, which it said was aggravated by the fact that it had not actively sought to disseminate the information contained in its Internet archive. The applicant submitted that Article 10 required the adoption of a single-publication rule.


23.  The Government submitted that the applicant had exceeded the limits of acceptable criticism and had accused Ms G.B. of taking bribes. Although criminal proceedings had been initiated against Ms G.B. on charges of breach of duty based on negligence, those proceedings had been postponed in accordance with Law no. 4616. Thus, in the circumstances of the case, Ms G.B. was entitled to be presumed innocent until the conclusion of the criminal proceedings against her. The domestic courts considered that even if Ms G.B. had been convicted of the charges, this would not mean that she had been bribed or that she had not behaved like a lady. When striking a balance between the conflicting interests, namely the applicant’s right to  <mask> and the plaintiff’s right to be presumed innocent, the domestic courts had ruled in favour of the latter. The interference in question had therefore been proportionate to the aim pursued and should be considered to fall within the margin of appreciation of the national authorities.


16.  The applicant argued that the desist order had interfered with his  <mask> without being justified by the protection of the personality rights of Dr St. He submitted that his distribution of leaflets and the intended conversations with passers-by had contributed to a public debate of great importance. His actions had not personally attacked Dr St., but had criticised the legal situation in Germany concerning abortions, which had been performed by a doctor within twelve weeks of conception and following obligatory counseling. Those abortions had been considered to be unlawful, but had been exempt from criminal liability. Moreover, it had been consistent with the case-law of the Federal Constitutional Court to call abortions, as performed by Dr St., unlawful. The applicant further submitted that the domestic courts had not sufficiently taken into account that Dr St. had not been unknown to the public – as the doctor had been in the earlier case decided by the Federal Court of Justice – but had appeared as an expert before the German Parliament and had been involved in several legal disputes in the context of the debate about abortion.


38.  The applicant replied that he had exercised his  <mask> when giving an interview to a journalist from Imperijal in which he had criticised the policy of the Minister of Health. Even though the domestic courts’ judgments suggested that he had not been ordered to pay damages for what he had said in that interview but for its title and for what he had allegedly said in the telephone conversation with Dr I.V., the exercise of his freedom of expression had been stifled indirectly, as he had been sanctioned for something that he had not said (in that interview).


68.  The applicant argued that the interference with her  <mask> had been disproportionate within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention in view of the minor threat posed by the publication to the interests of the Lithuanian State or any ethnic groups living in Lithuania or the neighbouring countries. In this connection the applicant emphasised that “Lithuanian calendar” had been edited and officially distributed by her for 6 years in the whole territory of Lithuania, attracting no great attention from the public or from State institutions. Similarly, the 2,000 edition of “Lithuanian calendar” had been released in a very limited print run of 3,000 in the second half of the year 1999, and for the following five months had caused no significant interest or exaggerated reactions, up until the State authorities' intervention in January 2000 after they received a note from the embassy of the Russian Federation. The applicant likewise noted that the Prosecutor General had refused to start criminal proceedings against her as the publication had not had the elements of the criminal offence of instigation of ethnic or racial hatred. She also observed that the information published in “Lithuanian calendar 2000” had already been made public in other historical documents. The applicant also relied on the fact that the publication had contained mainly the expression of her own opinions on and assessment of various historical events, and the State had presented no evidence proving the necessity of such a serious interference. As a result of the proceedings, she had not only received an administrative penalty in the form of a warning, but had also lost the main source of her income, in view of the confiscation and destruction of all the unsold items of “Lithuanian calendar 2000” and her resultant inability to continue editing the publication she had created. The applicant further submitted that the authorities could have pursued means other than halting the distribution of the calendar, such as giving her the opportunity to make certain rectifications or announcements, if necessary, on the cover of the remaining, unsold, versions of the publication. Finally, the domestic courts' finding of a lack of intent on the part of the applicant, as well as the minor danger which the publication represented, were also to be taken into account in discarding the argument that the interference had been necessary in a democratic society.


35.  The Government argued that the  <mask> enshrined in Article 10 of the Convention was not absolute. Paragraph 2 of Article 10 formulated certain conditions and restrictions concerning its exercise. Journalists, in order to comply with the duties and responsibilities referred to in that provision, were obliged to act in good faith and to provide accurate and reliable information to the public.


44.  The applicants began by emphasising that the interference in their right to  <mask> was totally lacking in legitimacy and observed that the offending remarks had not impugned the judiciary’s impartiality, no more than they had damaged the reputation or rights of others. They observed that the remarks had not hindered the judges’ action in seeking to establish the truth, nor had they led to a breach of the secrecy of the judicial investigation or of the right to be presumed innocent.


39.  The Government, while acknowledging the essential role played by the press as a “public watchdog”, asserted that in the present case the interference with the applicant company’s  <mask> had been necessary within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. They argued in particular that the domestic courts had had to weigh the applicant company’s interest in imparting information on an issue of public interest against the rights of the victim to the protection of her privacy which were equally protected by the Convention, namely the right to respect for her identity, protected by Article 8 as part of a person’s private life, as well as Article 31 § 1 (e) of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse and various other instruments of the Council of Europe. The necessity to carry out such a weighing of interests was laid down in section 7a (1) subparagraph (1) of the Media Act.


38.  The applicant claimed that the interference with his right to  <mask>, even though it had been in accordance with law and had pursued a legitimate aim, had not been proportionate. The applicant maintained that the domestic courts had failed to conduct a proper balancing exercise between the competing interests, since they had not taken into account all of the relevant criteria established in the Court’s case-law (he referred to Axel Springer AG v. Germany [GC], no. 39954/08, §§ 89-95, 7 February 2012).


25.  The Government admitted that the domestic courts’ decisions had amounted to an interference with the applicant’s right to  <mask>. They submitted, however, that the interference had been justified under Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. It was prescribed by law, namely Article 212 of the Criminal Code, and pursued a legitimate aim: the protection of the “reputation or rights of others”.


58.  The Government lastly submitted that the domestic courts had carried out a thorough analysis of the necessity of the impugned measure, in line with the principles developed in the Court’s case-law and the applicant company had been given a fine which had been close to the minimum provided in law (see paragraphs 19 and 36 above), so there were no grounds to find that the  <mask> had not been proportionate.


43.  The applicant further submitted that the  <mask> with his freedom of expression was not necessary in a democratic society. According to him, the article contained value judgments alone in regard to certain complainants and value judgments based on facts in regard to other complainants. The applicant argued that there had been no pressing social need for an interference with his freedom of expression and that the domestic courts did not adduce relevant and sufficient arguments to justify the interference.


59.  The applicants argued, under Article 7 of the Convention, that Finnish law contained no provision which defined reporting of a public trial as a punishable offence. At the time of the publication of the articles, it had been unforeseeable and surprising to the applicants that penal sanctions could be imposed on them for having published public information that had been freely available to everybody and to which anyone could have had access on the basis of Article 12, paragraph 2, of the Constitution of Finland. The published information remained even today freely available. The  <mask> with the applicants' freedom of expression had thus not been foreseeable or “prescribed by law”.


49.  The applicant submitted that there has been an unjustified  <mask> with his right to freedom of expression. He claimed that he was the victim of a pattern of prosecutions in this regard and that the prohibited acts, as defined in the Prevention of Terrorism legislation, were too vaguely defined to be “prescribed by law”. In this connection, he averred that the aim of the restrictions in reality was to suppress democracy and public discussion of the Kurdish issue. He argued that Article 8 of Law No. 3713 satisfied neither the accessibility nor the foreseeable test. He contended that the interpretation given to the act of assisting members of prohibited organisations under Article 7 of Law No. 3713 was too broad for him to have anticipated prosecution or to have enabled him to regulate his conduct accordingly.


55.  The Government acknowledged that the impugned court decisions amounted to an  <mask> with the applicant company’s right to freedom of expression. However, the interference was prescribed by law and pursued an aim recognised as legitimate by the Court, namely, the protection of the private sphere (News Verlags GmbH & Co.KG v. Austria, no. 31457/96, § 44, ECHR 2000‑I). The question at issue between the parties in the present case was whether the interference had been proportionate, and in particular whether the balancing exercise undertaken by the national courts of the applicant company’s right to freedom of expression against X’s right to respect for his private life was in conformity with the criteria established by the Court’s case-law. In that connection regard had to be had to the role of the person concerned, the purpose of the publication and the severity of the sanction imposed on the press.


31.  The Government argued that the  <mask> with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression had been justified in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 10. It had a legal basis in section 1 (1) of the Disciplinary Act taken in conjunction with section 9 of the Lawyers Act and served the legitimate aims of protecting the reputation and rights of others and the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.


184.  The applicant, by deliberately and consistently appearing naked in very public places such as urban centres, courtrooms and the communal parts of prisons, was intent on making a public statement of his belief in the inoffensive nature of the human body. The Court has found that his conduct amounted to a form of expression protected by Article 10 (see paragraph 150). It has previously indicated that a distinction must be drawn between carrying out an activity for personal fulfilment and carrying out the same activity for a public purpose, where one cannot be said to be acting for personal fulfilment alone (see Friend and Others, cited above, § 42). Furthermore, as concerns in particular an individual’s personal choices as to his desired appearance in public (as referred to in S.A.S., cited above), on analogy with the applicability of Article 9 of the Convention to religious beliefs (text of Article 9 cited below at paragraph 185), Article 8 cannot be taken to protect every conceivable personal choice in that domain: there must presumably be a de minimis level of seriousness as to the choice of desired appearance in question (see, mutatis mutandis, in relation to Article 9, Bayatyan, cited above, § 110; and Eweida and Others v. the United Kingdom, no. 48420/10, § 81, ECHR 2013 (extracts)). Whether the requisite level of seriousness has been reached in relation to the applicant’s choice to appear fully naked on all occasions in all public places without distinction may be doubted, having regard to the absence of support for such a choice in any known democratic society in the world. In any event, however, even if Article 8 were to be taken to be applicable to the circumstances of the present case, the Court is satisfied that those circumstances are not such as to disclose a violation of that provision on the part of the public authorities in Scotland. In sum, any  <mask> with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life was justified under Article 8 § 2 for essentially the same reasons given by the Court in the context of its analysis of the applicant’s complaint under Article 10 of the Convention (see paragraphs 171-176 above).


105.  The Government did not deny that the applicant’s conviction constituted an  <mask> with the exercise of his right to freedom of expression. They took the view, however, that this interference was prescribed by law, since its legal basis lay in section 23 and sections 29 et seq. of the Act of 29 July 1881, and that it pursued a legitimate aim. On that latter point they argued that it sought to maintain the authority and impartiality of the judiciary, and to ensure the protection of the reputation or rights of others, since the statements had been directed at judges in the exercise of their duties and also undermined the confidence of citizens in the judiciary.


44.  The applicant further argued that the  <mask> complained of was not “necessary in a democratic society”. He insisted, in particular, that his comment had been directed against dishonest and corrupt police officers whom he had called “infidel cops” in his text and had not targeted all Russian police officers. He pointed out that there had been valid grounds for his criticism given numerous articles in the mass media, including in newspapers, exposing various abuses committed by law-enforcement officers.


41.  The Government maintained that there had been no  <mask> with the exercise of the applicants’ right to freedom of expression. They submitted, however, that even if the Court were to consider that there had been such interference, it had been in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 10. In that connection the Government submitted that the interference with the applicants’ freedom of expression had been based on sections 58 and 151 of Law no. 298 and that it had pursued the legitimate aim of protecting public order. As to whether the interference in question had been necessary in a democratic society, the Government, quoting various passages from the Court’s case-law on Article 10, submitted that the domestic courts had examined the cases carefully and that their findings had been relevant and sufficient. It considered that the domestic courts’ decisions in the instant cases fell within the State’s margin of appreciation.


102.  The applicant companies argued that this  <mask> with their right to freedom of expression had not been “prescribed by law”. The publishing of taxation data had, in particular, been accepted by the Finnish legislator. The preparatory work relating to the Act on the Public Disclosure and Confidentiality of Tax Information noted that such publishing had taken place for years and also served certain societal purposes. A thorough discussion had taken place during the preparation of the said Act, assessing the pros and cons of publishing taxation data, and the legislator had finally decided to maintain public access to such data. The Personal Data Act was not intended to restrict publishing activities. The relevant preparatory work stated that the legal status of the data in question was to remain unchanged. The journalistic purposes derogation was to apply to databases that were designed to support publishing so as to prevent even indirect prior restrictions on freedom of expression. Possible violations of privacy were to be examined and dealt with ex post facto. On this basis the applicant companies argued that the interference had not been “prescribed by law” within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention.


106.  The Government submitted that no prior notification had been made to the competent authority about a march planned for 16 July 2006 along Nevskiy Avenue. The absence of such notification had rendered the march unlawful. Certain demonstrators had behaved in a “destructive manner”, thus manifestly breaching order and creating a real threat to their own and others’ safety. They had not stopped their unlawful actions and had not dispersed, despite the  <mask> by the police. Moreover, they had shown active resistance to the police. Some forty people had been arrested.


20.  The Government argued that the courts' decisions had been justified under Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. By qualifying the applicant's statements as statements of fact, the Austrian courts had not transgressed their margin of appreciation. An essential element for this qualification was the fact that the impugned statements had been given without any further explanation and without giving the reasons for the applicant's conclusions. The Austrian courts had legitimately interpreted the statements in the sense normally attributable to similar reproaches. Even assuming that Mr Köck was to be considered as a person of public life, the impugned statements had transgressed the limit of acceptable criticism. The Austrian courts' orders had also been proportionate. In that regard the Government argued that the applicant had neither been convicted nor made to pay compensation. He had merely been ordered to refrain from making clearly defined incorrect statements of fact and by no means impeded from voicing his opinion in other less derogatory and defamatory words. Even if the Court, contrary to the Government's view, considered the statements to be value judgments, the  <mask> appeared proportionate, in particular in view of the implied accusation that Mr Köck had acted in a manner similar to another expert who had committed criminal acts.


16.  The applicant newspaper agreed that the  <mask> was prescribed by law and had pursued a legitimate aim. However, it was not necessary in a democratic society because the impugned article had merely disseminated statements made by a third party and had been part of a debate on an issue of public interest. The impugned statement was a quote from an open letter sent to the President of the country, the Prime Minister, the Council of Europe, the OSCE Mission in Moldova, the Moldovan Centre for Human Rights and the United States Embassy in Chişinău. Beside Mr V.S., the letter referred to at least five other judges and prosecutors involved in the criminal case. Mr V.S. had never asked the newspaper for a retraction of the statement or for a right to retort. The article had been written on the basis of detailed research. The journalist had contacted the author of the open letter and interviewed her. The journalist had also obtained a legal opinion from a lawyer and studied the verbatim record of a debate in Parliament on the criminal proceedings against Ms Duca. Mr V.S. had indeed been dismissed from his position in June 2002 and appointed as a simple prosecutor. The reasons for the demotion had never been made public; however, the investigation conducted by the journalist and the fact of the demotion of Mr V.S. could have reasonably made the journalist believe that the information in the open letter was reliable.


22.  The Government argued that the Austrian courts' injunction did not constitute an  <mask> with the applicant association's rights within the meaning of Article 10 of the Convention. They submitted in that regard that Article 10 did not protect artistic freedom as such but only provided protection to artists who intended to contribute through their work to a public discussion of political or cultural matters. The present reproduction of public figures in “group sexual situations” could, however, hardly be regarded as a statement of opinion contributing to a cultural or political debate.


32.  The applicant company submitted that the  <mask> in issue had not pursued a “legitimate aim”; firstly, the aim relating to the “social function” of medical confidentiality could not justify a ruling in favour of a person's heirs, and secondly, the protection of François Mitterrand's private interests could not be relied on since the right to institute civil proceedings had lapsed on his death.


24.  The applicant contested the necessity of the  <mask>. It asserted that the scope of the preliminary injunction as formulated by the Supreme Court went beyond what was necessary to protect Mr G.'s rights. The lower instances had only prohibited the publication of Mr G.'s picture in the context of the tax evasion proceedings against him if accompanied by any text violating the presumption of innocence. In contrast, the Supreme Court considered that the duty to respect the fiscal secret excluded any public interest in receiving the information at issue. Consequently, it had failed to weigh the conflicting interests. Moreover, the Supreme Court considered it irrelevant whether or not the applicant had obtained the information without inciting tax officials to breach the fiscal secret. Such an interpretation was contrary to the Court's approach in Fressoz and Roire v. France [GC], no. 29183/95, ECHR 1999‑I.


38.  The applicant company stated that it had nothing to add to the arguments already submitted in its application. There, it had argued that the  <mask> with its right to freedom of expression was not necessary, in particular as the article explicitly stated that no suspicion existed against Mrs G. Further, it had argued that Mrs G. had laid herself open to public scrutiny when escaping together with a Member of Parliament and had given interviews to the media. Moreover, there had been great public interest in the events at issue and Mrs G. had willingly given interviews to the media and had her picture taken.