SECOND SECTION
CASE OF MESIĆ v. CROATIA (No. 2)
(Application no. 45066/17)
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
Art 8 • Positive obligations • Private life • Dismissal of civil defamation action of a former President of Croatia about an article published on an Internet news portal suggesting his involvement in criminal activities during his term of office • Fair balance struck by domestic courts between competing Art 8 and Art 10 interests with regard to criteria laid down in the Court’s case-law • Article concerned matter of public interest • Media’s “watchdog” role assuming particular importance where investigative journalism was a guarantee that authorities could be held to account for their conduct
 
STRASBOURG
30 May 2023
 
FINAL
 
25/09/2023
 
This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Mesić v. Croatia (no. 2),
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:
 Arnfinn Bårdsen, President,
 Jovan Ilievski,
 Egidijus Kūris,
 Pauliine Koskelo,
 Frédéric Krenc,
 Diana Sârcu,
 Davor Derenčinović, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 2 May 2023,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 45066/17) against the Republic of Croatia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Croatian national, Mr Stjepan Mesić (“the applicant”), on 20 June 2017;
the decision to give notice to the Croatian Government (“the Government”) of the complaint concerning the right to respect for private life and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
INTRODUCTION
1. The application concerns an article published on 17 February 2015 by an Internet news portal Dnevno.hr suggesting that the applicant (a former President of Croatia) had, during his term of office, been involved in criminal activities in relation to the procurement of armoured vehicles for the Croatian army from the Finnish company Patria. The applicant complained that by dismissing his civil action for compensation, the domestic courts had failed to protect his reputation in violation of his right to respect for his private life guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention. THE FACTS
2. The applicant was born in 1934 and lives in Pušća. He was the President of the Republic of Croatia between 19 February 2000 and 18 February 2010. He was represented by Mr Č. Prodanović, a lawyer practising in Zagreb. 3. The Government were represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stažnik. EVENTS GIVING RISE TO THE DISPUTECriminal proceedings in Finland

4. In 2013 the Finnish prosecuting authorities indicted three employees of the Finnish company Patria before Finnish courts, charging them with an aggravated form of the criminal offence of promising or giving a bribe, in relation to a procurement process for armoured vehicles for the Croatian army. The indictment suggested that one of the persons to whom the bribe had been offered or given was the applicant. On 28 June 2013 the Office of the Finnish Prosecutor General issued a press release written in English, the relevant part of which read as follows:
“Former CEO and two other former employees of Patria Vehicles Oy, a subsidiary company of the Patria Group, will be facing charges of aggravated bribery in a case linked to the sale of Patria AMV-type armoured vehicles to the Republic of Croatia in 2007.
... The Finnish defendants are suspected to have participated in promising or giving bribes through intermediaries in exchange for actions of the President of the Republic of Croatia and [a] general manager of a Croatian State-owned company, who were considered to have leverage in the procurement procedure of the vehicles. The suspects are alleged to have promised and partly paid out bribes amounting to 5% of the selling price of the AMV-vehicles. In 2005 Patria Vehicles Oy offered AMV‑vehicles to the Republic of Croatia at the price exceeding 350 million euros. In 2007 an agreement for purchase of a limited number of vehicles was concluded between Patria Vehicles Oy and the Republic of Croatia, Patria’s share of the deal being more than 50 million euros. Afterwards Patria Vehicles Oy paid out 1.5 million euros, part of the alleged bribes, to an intermediary in Austria. Further money transfers in Austria raised suspicion of money laundering and corruption, and a joint investigation was launched by Finnish, Austrian and Croatian authorities. So far, the joint investigation has resulted in criminal charges in Finland, but still continues in Austria and Croatia. The Finnish prosecutors have filed an application for a summons at District Court of Kanta-Häme. The District Court is already hearing another case, where the same defendants are indicted for aggravated bribery. This case is connected to AMV‑[vehicles] purchase between Patria Vehicles Oy and the Republic of Slovenia. All suspects have denied accusations against them. The trial documents remain classified until the first hearing of the case or until the District Court rules separately about the publicity of the documents.”
5. In a judgment adopted on 16 February 2015, the Kanta-Häme District Court found the two accused employees of Patria guilty as charged and imposed a suspended sentence. Specifically, the court found them guilty of promising and giving a bribe to the director of a Croatian company which manufactured arms and vehicles (hereafter “the Croatian company”) that had been involved in the procurement procedure in question. The charges were dismissed in respect of the third accused. 6. As regards the applicant, the district court held:
“In relation to lobbying, it must also be stated that the mere fact that Mesić was considered an important lobbying target does not in fact prove that he was promised or given a bribe.
...
... it has been proven that the [two] accused [who were convicted] promised 2% of the purchase price to [the director of the Croatian company]. On the other hand, [the identity of] the three VIPs mentioned in the documents who had each been promised 1% of the purchase price has not been established.
... Although Mesić’s name appears in a number of messages ... the bribe given or promised to Mesić was not presented with enough evidence, from the point of view of the accusation.”
7. Following an appeal, by a judgment of 17 February 2016, the Turku Court of Appeal overturned the first-instance judgment and acquitted the accused. It found no proof that they had promised any bribe to the director of the Croatian company, or that they had been aware of any such promises made by someone else. The applicant was not mentioned in the Turku Court of Appeal’s decision. The prosecution decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court. Events in Croatia
8. Meanwhile, a day after the adoption of the Kanta-Häme District Court’s judgment (see paragraph 5 above), the president of Transparency International Croatia gave the following statement to the media regarding the findings of the Finnish court:
“These are very serious accusations that deeply compromise not only Croatia, but also all those [public officials] who exercise their office honestly and transparently, guided above all by public and not individual interests. It is never too late to investigate such serious misconduct. In the interest of protecting Croatian national interests and honour, we need to investigate where that money really ended up, if not in Croatia, we need to find it. Given that the investigation mentioned prominent individuals who [were] high‑ranking government [officials] at the time, a serious approach is even more necessary. It should be in [all] of their interests to really show that they did not misappropriate that money. No citizen should be above the law. The sense of responsibility of those who hold public office is the basis for creating trust in politicians and political institutions. The authorities responsible for sanctioning unacceptable conduct, primarily the State Attorney’s Office and USKOK [the Croatian Office for the Prevention of Organised Crime], must perform their work professionally, regardless of the individuals involved.”
The impugned article
9. On 17 February 2015, that is, one day after the adoption of the first‑instance judgment in Finland (see paragraph 5 above), a Croatian Internet news portal Dnevno.hr published an article about the Patria case and the above-mentioned criminal proceedings in Finland. The article suggested that the Finnish indictment accusing two Patria employees of promising or giving a bribe to the applicant and the director of the Croatian company, and the fact that the accused had been found guilty as charged, required the Croatian prosecuting authorities, namely the Office for the Prevention of Organised Crime (hereafter “USKOK”), to investigate the applicant’s role in the matter and bring charges against him. 10. In the introductory part of the article, the author stated that in May 2014 he had had a telephone conversation with the Finnish Prosecutor General, who had confirmed that he had sent certain documents concerning the investigation conducted in Finland to the Croatian prosecuting authorities. Above the article there was an extract from a document written in Finnish, presumably an indictment, in which the applicant’s name was mentioned several times. 11. The relevant part of the article read as follows:
“As the Finnish Prosecutor [General] ... personally confirmed to me in a telephone conversation last May, they sent the documents to USKOK. They [also] sent them to us, and [those documents] clearly state that Stjepan Mesić received a bribe of 630,000 euros from people who have just been convicted of giving bribes. Therefore, the statement of USKOK, which states that ‘no data, facts or evidence were obtained which would have given rise to a reasonable suspicion that officials or persons in positions of responsibility in Croatia [had] demanded or received bribes in connection with the business relationship with the Finnish company Patria’ is an ordinary lie. If we received this information, and if [the Finnish Prosecutor General] personally confirmed to us by phone that [USKOK] had – at their own request! – had [the information] sent to them as well, and not only the [information] we have, but much more comprehensive [information], then someone must [stand trial]. Either Mesić and [the former Principal State Attorney of Croatia] are lying, as well as [the current Principal State Attorney of Croatia], who was then the director of USKOK, or [the Finnish Prosecutor General] is lying and the Finnish judiciary ... convicts innocent people! Because it is not possible to give a bribe without someone receiving it.
[The Finnish Prosecutor General] didn’t say that only to us. He said the same ... to the journalists of Globus. I quote:
‘Yes, former President Stjepan Mesić and a former director of [the Croatian company] are suspected of taking bribes from three managers of Patria’. That was in January 2013. In the meantime, [two] Patria managers ... who were directly charged in the indictment with giving bribes to Stjepan Mesić and the director of [the Croatian company] through Austrian intermediaries were sentenced to [terms of imprisonment of] one year and eight months for giving bribes for the sale of armoured vehicles to Croatia ...
[In reply to] our question about whether Stjepan Mesić’s name was mentioned ... in the indictment, and [our comment] that Mesić was asking for an apology ... for that, [the Finnish Prosecutor General] told us ... ‘It is true that it is mentioned. If someone gave a bribe, it is clear that someone on the other side received it. We believe that part of that money was promised to Stipe Mesić, that he was the recipient of the bribe, but, I repeat, he has not been charged in Finland. The indictment against him should be lodged by the Croatian side. We forwarded them the [relevant] information and documents’, he told us.
... Regarding the accusation, Mesić said ‘I don’t know who handled the money in Patria, I don’t know the managers and I don’t know who they gave the money to. All this is possible, but it has nothing to do with Croatia, that is, nothing to do with the President of the Republic, because the President is the supreme commander and has nothing to do with the procurement of any equipment or arms. The Ministry of Defence is in charge of that. There isn’t a single reason to accuse me of anything here. But there are [people] in Croatia who would like to [implicate] me ...’
Let’s recall that Mesić firstly denied that his name was even mentioned in the indictment, and later, when faced with the facts, said that everyone (except him) was lying and that [because] someone in Patria had embezzled the money, ... they were accusing him. It is interesting that when we ... pointed out to him that we had an indictment in which his name was expressly mentioned, he said that he did not believe anything we were saying ... ‘... such accusations come from media [sources] like yours, I don’t believe anything you say anyway, and I won’t deny anything you write’, he told us. This whole [mess] is based on two things. The first is that Mesić and the others claim that they are not and cannot be guilty, because the Finns did not even bring charges against them. ‘We are not even accused’, they say. The truth is that they are not and will not be, simply because they are not Finnish citizens [and] they have not committed any criminal offence in Finland, and, most importantly, in 2010 Finland, Austria and Croatia signed an international agreement on an international investigation team for the Patria case, in accordance with which the [prosecuting authorities] of each country [are] obliged to prosecute [their respective] citizens whom the joint investigation finds have participated in the criminal activities in the Patria case. Therefore, emphasising that ‘the Finns did not even accuse them’ is pointless, because that is not their job, nor are they allowed to do so. The joint investigation undoubtedly established that Mesić and [the director of the Croatian company] participated in criminal activities, and therefore [the current and former Principal State Attorneys of Croatia], by systematically ignoring and not investigating the case, and by not lodging an indictment, are committing a criminal offence and violating an international agreement.
... The second thing the accused point out is that the Finnish court did not prove that they were the ones who had received the bribe, which [the Finnish Prosecutor General] also confirmed. ‘It was proven in court that one and a half million euros in bribes (out of a total of 3.7 million) was intended for the director of [the Croatian company]. The Finnish duo paid a bribe to [an] Austrian intermediary ..., who handed it over to another intermediary ... who kept part of the money. We reconstructed the agreement from the documents and messages they sent to each other, but beyond [the second intermediary] we could no longer follow the flow of money, and we have no evidence that [the director of the Croatian company] received any money’ [the Finnish Prosecutor General] told the [daily newspaper] Večernji List. But the indictment also clearly describes [the second intermediary’s] meeting with Mesić and [a] former Prime Minister, after which he informed Patria’s managers that their support had been secured. The Finnish court obviously did not prove that, nor did it try to prove it at all, because it does not concern them – and it does not concern them because they did not even put Mesić on trial, and therefore they did not even have to prove anything about him. This, of course, does not mean that Mesić is not guilty, as he and the USKOK claim. But it means that the Croatian judiciary is obliged to try to prove that part of the indictment! However, Mesić will continue to manipulate [by using] this [and] by saying that no one has been accusing him of anything and that therefore he cannot even be guilty, and that his guilt has not been proven in Finland. He just forgets to mention that no one is investigating him, and no one is proving anything because the Croatian judiciary ... is a branch of [the former Yugoslav secret service]. That is why it will not be enough to put just Mesić on trial, but also those in the judiciary who have been protecting him ... for years.” (original emphasis)
The applicant’s request for correction
12. On 18 March 2015 the applicant requested, through an advocate, that the news portal Dnevno.hr publish a correction of the following three statements in the impugned article (see paragraph 11 above) which he considered to be false and injurious to his honour and reputation:
(i) “Stjepan Mesić received a bribe of 630,000 euros from people who have just been convicted of giving bribes”;
(ii) “in the meantime, [two] Patria managers ... who were directly charged in the indictment with giving bribes to Stjepan Mesić and the director of [the Croatian company] ... were sentenced to [terms of imprisonment of] one year and eight months for giving bribes for the sale of armoured vehicles to Croatia”;
(iii) “the joint investigation undoubtedly established that Mesić and [the director of the Croatian company] participated in criminal activities”. 13. The applicant explained that he had not in any way been involved in the procurement procedure in question, that the persons convicted in Finland had not been found guilty of promising or giving bribes to him (see paragraph 5 above), and that he had not been promised a bribe or received any. He also stated that no one had contacted him to verify the statements in question before the publication of the article. 14. On 19 March 2015 the news portal Dnevno.hr replied that it would not publish a correction because it stood by the impugned statements. In an attachment to its reply, the news portal also enclosed a statement by the journalist who was the author of the article. 15. In that statement, the journalist submitted that the first of the impugned statements, which had been taken out of context by the applicant, was not his own, but a statement from the Finnish indictment which had resulted in the conviction for giving bribes. The accuracy of the second statement was evident from the indictment and the Kanta-Häme District Court’s judgment (see paragraphs 5-6 above). The accuracy of the third statement was indicated by the fact that the applicant’s name was mentioned in the Finnish indictment, which had been the result of the joint investigation and had resulted in the convictions of the intermediaries and those who had given bribes. 16. The journalist also emphasised that the article had not contradicted the finding in the Finnish judgment that the two employees of Patria had not been found guilty of promising or giving bribes to the applicant (see paragraph 5 above). However, that was irrelevant because they had given the bribes to the two Austrian intermediaries, whose task had been to forward that money to the applicant and the director of the Croatian company involved in the procurement. The journalist claimed that, according to the Finnish judgment, those intermediaries had then reported back that the applicant’s and the director’s support had been secured. In this regard, the journalist also referred to the statement of Transparency International Croatia (see paragraph 8 above). 17. Lastly, the journalist pointed out that the fact that the applicant had not been indicted – whereas in all other States involved in the Patria case, indictments had been lodged and had resulted in intermediaries and those who had given and received bribes being convicted – was not proof of the applicant’s innocence, but only fuelled public suspicion that the prosecuting and judicial authorities were under political influence. CIVIL PROCEEDINGS FOR DEFAMATION
18. On 18 May 2015 the applicant brought a civil action in the Zagreb Municipal Civil Court (Općinski građanski sud u Zagrebu) against the company operating the news portal Dnevno.hr. He submitted that the three statements (see paragraph 12 above) in the impugned article were false because the Kanta-Häme District Court’s judgment indicated that the two employees of Patria had not been convicted for promising or giving bribes to him (see paragraph 5 above). Those statements had breached his honour and reputation because he had been portrayed as a corrupt politician and a criminal. By publishing that article on its website, the news portal had made those false statements publicly available and accessible to a wide audience. The applicant sought 40,000 Croatian kunas (HRK), approximately 5,290 euros (EUR) at the time, as compensation for non-pecuniary damage sustained. 19. At a preliminary hearing on 1 September 2015 the applicant submitted a partial translation of the Kanta-Häme District Court’s judgment, and in his accompanying submissions he drew the court’s attention to the passages quoted in paragraph 6 above. He also enclosed a letter from the USKOK dated 29 December 2014 which informed the court that that office had taken a number of investigative measures in the Patria case, but not against the applicant. 20. On 18 November 2015 a main hearing was held at which the court heard evidence from the applicant and the journalist who was the author of the impugned article. 21. The applicant stated that everything in the impugned article was a notorious lie, and that he had not been involved in the procurement procedure in question as the Ministry of Defence had been in charge of it. He submitted that at the time there had been a media campaign against him and that in October 2013 a journalist from the weekly news magazine Globus had had an article published in which she had said that she had spoken with the Finnish Prosecutor General, even though the Finnish embassy in Croatia had on 7 July 2014 stated that, beside the press release of 28 June 2013 (see paragraph 4 above), no other communication with the media had been documented by the Finnish prosecuting authorities. The applicant also stated that no one from the news portal in question had contacted him before the publication of the article. 22. The author of the impugned article stated:
“I confirm that I am the author of the article published on the news portal Dnevno.hr, and that I obtained the information which is the subject matter of that article [from] various [other pieces of] information published by [the Croatian news agency] HINA and on the basis of a direct interview with the Finnish Prosecutor General, whom I called on the phone. His phone [number] was available online, and on that occasion [he] told me that an indictment had been lodged in Finland and that proceedings had been conducted on the basis of a joint investigation carried out by Austria, Croatia and Finland in the Patria case, whereby the indictment in Finland had been lodged against [Finnish] nationals who had given bribes, [and that] lodging further indictments against the other persons involved in the case was up to each country. [He also] told me ... that the indictment had been lodged and had charged Patria managers with giving bribes through intermediaries ... and that, in his opinion, someone had had to receive those bribes ..., probably [the director of the Croatian company] and Stjepan Mesić. Those were the names stated in the indictment. ... in addition to the telephone conversation, on which I made notes, [he] also emailed me ... the indictment in Finnish.”
23. The author further stated that in the article he had not been accusing the applicant of a criminal offence, but had merely reported that in the Finnish indictment he had been suspected of such an offence. He also stated that he had not contacted the applicant before writing the article. However, when he was shown the part of the article suggesting otherwise, he changed his testimony and stated that it seemed that he had contacted the applicant after all. 24. Furthermore, the journalist testified that he was aware of the Kanta‑Häme District Court’s judgment, but that the judgment had not been adopted at the time he had written the article. At that time the judgment had not been important for him, as he had been writing about the indictment. Since he had not written about the judgment, he had not enquired about it. At the end of his testimony, the journalist stated:
“On the basis of the communication with the [Finnish Prosecutor General], ... from everything, I drew a conclusion that [the applicant] had participated in criminal activities, having regard to the information in the indictment relating to the giving of bribes, in which [the applicant] was mentioned several times.”
25. In a judgment of 31 December 2015, the Zagreb Municipal Civil Court dismissed the applicant’s claim and ordered him to pay the defendant HRK 3,750 (approximately EUR 490 at the material time) for the costs of the proceedings. The relevant part of that judgment reads as follows:
“What is disputed is ... whether the published information was accurate or sufficiently verified, and whether its publication caused harm to the plaintiff by breaching his ... reputation, honour and dignity.
 
... It is not disputed that the plaintiff was not charged in the proceedings [in Finland] .... The plaintiff disputes the accuracy of the statements made in the article relating to the procurement procedure for military vehicles, pointing out that he had no role in it and that he did not receive any bribe or promise of a bribe. However, since the defendant primarily argues that [the published information] is information ... reported from relevant sources, [the court in this case] should primarily determine whether the author of the article took all the necessary steps to verify its accuracy ...
... The author of the article ... submits that he obtained the impugned information by consulting [the Finnish] indictment ... which was allegedly sent to him, and from his interview with the Finnish Prosecutor General ... It also appears from his testimony that the content of the indictment suggested that there were grounds for suspecting the plaintiff, although the plaintiff himself was neither suspected nor charged in the criminal proceedings [in Finland]. Therefore, this information was the basis for writing the impugned article. By consulting the press release of the Office of the Prosecutor General in Finland of 28 June 2013, the court has found that [its] content supports the statements [in] the article. Specifically, that [press] release clearly states that the Finnish accused were suspected of participating in giving a promise of [a bribe] or giving a bribe through an intermediary in exchange for actions by the President of Croatia and [the director of the Croatian company], who were considered to have influence in the vehicle procurement procedure. Thus, the [press] release directly mentions the office of the President of Croatia, [and] it is undisputed that the plaintiff held that office in the relevant period. By that [press] release, the media were informed that a joint investigation had resulted in criminal charges being brought in Finland, but that the investigation was continuing in Austria and Croatia. This court ... will not examine the accuracy of the published information with regard to the role and powers the plaintiff did or did not have in the procurement procedure for military vehicles, or the accuracy of the suspicions about [him] receiving a promise of a bribe or the bribe [itself], because that cannot be the subject of these proceedings. That is why the court has not assessed the part of the plaintiff’s testimony in which he contests the accuracy of the published information, because it is not relevant for these proceedings. Examining the reliability and [the degree of] verification of the information ... in the impugned ... article, the court has found that it was proven by the content of the press release of the Finnish Prosecutor General’s office, as well as by the content of the Finnish court’s judgment, the translation of which was submitted by the plaintiff ... Given that [the plaintiff] only submitted a translation of parts of the Finnish judgment (the original of which was presented to the court) and that the court did not see the full text of the judgment, the court has assessed that evidence having regard to the fact that the defendant did not object to the use of such evidence.
... it appears from the enclosed piece of evidence that the criminal proceedings in Finland were conducted on the basis of an indictment in which the plaintiff and another person [, the director of the Croatian company,] were mentioned by name .... The foregoing further supports the statements made by the author of the article ... that he consulted the Finnish indictment ... [T]his court considers the content of the Finnish judgment to be non-decisive for the dispute in question. In particular, it is undisputed that the plaintiff was not charged [by] the Finnish indictment, which was pointed out ... [in] the article itself. The author of the article used the content of the indictment as the source of grounds for suspicion in relation to the plaintiff, which motivated him to write [the article]. Since the plaintiff was not a participant in the criminal proceedings in Finland and [because] no decision was issued in respect of him regarding the criminal offence [in question], the plaintiff’s argument that the author of the article was aware that the judgment had been adopted at the time of the publication of the impugned article is irrelevant.
[The publication of the article] was the disclosure of information that had been published in the media in Finland, and the author of the article, doing his job as a journalist, had the right to report such information, since the plaintiff is a public figure, and publishing such verified information is in the public interest and constitutes exercising the role of [a] journalist. The court has therefore found that the author of the article acted in good faith [and] on the basis of sufficiently verified information. It should be noted that the plaintiff’s presumption of innocence, guaranteed to him by the Constitution, was not called into question in any way by the publication of that information. The enclosed letter from the USKOK confirming that no investigation measures were taken against the plaintiff in relation to the procurement of military vehicles from the company Patria is not relevant in these proceedings, because it does not prove anything.”
26. The applicant then lodged an appeal against the first-instance judgment. He argued that it was evident that the impugned statements were false, that the author had not had a good reason to believe that they were true, and that he had not taken all necessary steps to verify their accuracy. 27. The applicant firstly challenged the municipal court’s refusal to examine whether the impugned statements were false. He did so by arguing that their veracity was precisely what had to be examined under the relevant domestic law (see paragraph 36 above). He also strongly challenged the municipal court’s finding that the content of the Kanta-Häme District Court’s judgment and the journalist’s knowledge of it at the time of writing the article were irrelevant for the case. The article suggested that its author had been aware of that judgment but had nevertheless decided to publish the article and the impugned false statements, which meant that he had not acted in good faith. 28. Despite the Zagreb Municipal Civil Court’s refusal to examine the accuracy of the impugned statements and its categorical finding that the Finnish judgment was irrelevant, that court had nevertheless examined that issue by holding that the press release of 28 June 2013 and the Finnish judgment indicated that those statements were true (see paragraphs 4-6 and 25 above). The municipal court’s judgment had thus contradicted itself. 29. The applicant then contested the finding that the press release of 28 June 2013 and the Kanta-Häme District Court’s judgment indicated that the three impugned statements were true. In particular, given their content, neither of those two documents could serve as evidence of the veracity of the statement that the joint investigation had undoubtedly established that the applicant had participated in criminal activities. Likewise, it could not have been argued that the letter from USKOK of 29 December 2014 was not relevant to the veracity of that statement. However, the first-instance court had held that USKOK’s letter did not prove anything (see paragraphs 19 and 25 above). 30. The applicant further pointed out that the defendant had not furnished any evidence indicating that the author of the article had ever spoken to the Finnish Prosecutor General, and that in his testimony before the municipal court the journalist had admitted that he himself had drawn the conclusion that the applicant had participated in criminal activities (see paragraph 24 above). However, that conclusion had lacked any factual basis. 31. By a judgment of 19 April 2016, the Zagreb County Court (Županijski sud u Zagrebu) dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the first-instance judgment. The relevant part of that judgment reads as follows:
“... the first-instance court correctly established that, in the present case, the conditions for exoneration from liability referred to in [section 21 of the Media Act] were met, since the author of the impugned article, by taking into account the information already published in other media, as well as other relevant sources (the telephone interview with the Finnish Prosecutor General, the Finnish indictment), presented accurate and verified information which constituted information of justified public interest, as the plaintiff is a public figure. In the view of the second-instance court ..., the author of the article acted in good faith on the basis of previously verified information, reporting the statement of the [Finnish] Prosecutor General and the words of the plaintiff himself, [and this] points to the objectivity of the text and does not call into question the plaintiff’s presumption of innocence.”
32. On 5 July 2016 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske). Relying on Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 of the Convention and Article 28 and Article 29 § 1 of the Croatian Constitution (see paragraph 34 below), he argued that the civil courts had breached his right to a reasoned judgment and his right to be presumed innocent. In so doing, in substance, he repeated the arguments raised in his appeal (see paragraphs 26-30 above) and added that the Zagreb County Court had not replied to any of those arguments. In his constitutional complaint, the applicant stated, inter alia, that because of false statements in the impugned article he had “suffered non-pecuniary damage in the form of a violation of the rights of personality, that is, the right to honour and reputation”. 33. By a decision of 8 December 2016, the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s constitutional complaint. It found that the domestic courts had given sufficient reasons for their decisions, which were not arbitrary, and that the case did not disclose a breach of the applicant’s constitutional right to be presumed innocent. RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE
THE CONSTITUTION
34. The relevant Articles of the Croatian Constitution (Ustav Republike Hrvatske, Official Gazette no. 56/90 with subsequent amendments) read as follows:
Article 28
“Everyone shall be [presumed] innocent and may not be considered guilty of a criminal offence until his [or her] guilt has been established by a final court judgement.”
Article 29 § 1
“Everyone shall be entitled to have his or her rights and obligations, or [a] suspicion or accusation [against him or her in respect] of a criminal offence, decided upon fairly and within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial court established by law.”
Article 35
“Everyone shall be guaranteed respect for, and the legal protection of, his [or her] personal and family life, dignity, reputation and honour.”
Article 38
“(1) Freedom of thought and expression shall be guaranteed. (2) Freedom of expression shall include, in particular, freedom of the press and other media, freedom of speech and [the freedom] to speak publicly, and the free establishment of all media institutions. (3) Censorship shall be forbidden. Journalists shall have a right to freedom of reporting and access to information. (4) ... (5) The right to [demand a] correction shall be guaranteed to anyone whose rights guaranteed by the Constitution or by statute have been breached by information in the public domain.”
RELEVANT LEGISLATION
35. The relevant provisions of the Constitutional Court Act, as amended by the 2002 Amendments (Ustavni zakon o Ustavnom sudu Republike Hrvatske, Official Gazette nos. 99/99 and 29/02) which entered into force on 15 March 2002, read as follows:
Section 62(1)
“Anyone may lodge a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court if he or she deems that a decision of a State authority, local or regional government, or a legal person invested with public authority, on his or her rights or obligations, or as regards a suspicion or accusation of a criminal offence, has violated his or her human rights or fundamental freedoms ... guaranteed by the Constitution (‘constitutional right[s]’) ...”
Section 65(1)
“A constitutional complaint shall contain ... an indication of the constitutional right alleged to have been violated, [together] with an indication of the relevant provision of the Constitution guaranteeing that right ...”
Section 71(1)
“... [t]he Constitutional Court shall examine only the violations of constitutional rights alleged in the constitutional complaint.”
36. The relevant provisions of the Media Act (Zakon o medijima, Official Gazette, no. 59/04 with subsequent amendments), which entered into force on 1 January 2006, read as follows:
Liability for damage
Section 21
“(1)  A publisher who causes damage to another person by publishing [certain] information in the media shall be obliged to compensate [that person], except in the cases provided for in this Act.
... (4)  The publisher shall not be liable for damages if the damaging information:
...
– was based on accurate facts or facts which the author had good reason to believe were accurate and [if the author] took all necessary measures to verify their accuracy, and there was a justified public interest in the publication of that information, and if it was acted on in good faith.”
37. The Obligations Act (Zakon o obveznim odnosima, Official Gazette, no. 35/05 with subsequent amendments), which has been in force since 1 January 2006, is the legislation governing contracts and torts. In accordance with that Act, courts are entitled to award compensation for non-pecuniary damage caused, inter alia, by injury to one’s reputation and honour. The relevant provisions of that Act are set out in Mesić v. Croatia, no. 19362/18, § 25, 5 May 2022. OTHER DOCUMENTS
38. The relevant part of the Code of Ethics of Croatian Journalists (Kodeks časti hrvatskih novinara, of 27 February 1993, applicable at the material time, reads as follows:
 “5. A journalist is bound to publish accurate, complete, and verified information. ... 6. In all journalistic contributions, as well as in comments and polemics, the journalist is bound to respect the ethics of public speaking and the culture of dialogue, and to respect the honour, reputation and dignity of the persons or groups in relation to whom he or she is engaging in polemics. When reporting on topics on which there are different relevant points of view, and especially when accusatory allegations are made, the journalist shall try to present all these points of view to the public.
... 17. When reporting about judicial proceedings, the constitutional principle of the presumption of innocence of the accused and the dignity, integrity and sensitivity of all parties to the dispute should be respected.
... 29. If inaccurate or substantially incomplete information or information that in some other way is in breach of this Code is published in an edition of a newspaper, [or in a] radio or television programme or electronic publication, anyone who is directly or indirectly actually or potentially harmed by the publication of that information has the right to [demand a] correction.”
THE LAW
ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 8 OF THE CONVENTION
39. The applicant complained that that by dismissing his civil action for compensation, the domestic courts had failed to protect his reputation as part of his right to respect for his private life. He relied on Article 8 of the Convention, the relevant part of which reads as follows:
“1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private ... life ... 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
AdmissibilityThe parties’ submissions

(a)   The Government
40. The Government submitted that the applicant had not exhausted domestic remedies, because in his constitutional complaint he had not relied on Article 8 of the Convention or Article 35 of the Croatian Constitution (see paragraphs 32 and 34 above). Instead, he had complained of a violation of his right to a fair hearing and a violation of his right to be presumed innocent. 41. In that way, contrary to the principle of subsidiarity, the applicant had not provided the Constitutional Court with an opportunity to decide on the alleged violation of Article 8 of the Convention. Had he relied on Article 8 of the Convention or the corresponding Article of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court would have examined the substance of his grievances concerning the alleged breach of his right to reputation, and would have carried out the required balancing exercise between the need to protect that reputation and the news portal’s freedom of expression. In support of this, the Government furnished several examples of decisions in which the Constitutional Court had done so, and in which the complainants had relied on Article 35 of the Constitution in their constitutional complaints. (b)   The applicant
42. The applicant replied that he had, in substance, raised his complaint under Article 8 of the Convention before the domestic courts. It was obvious that the subject-matter of the civil proceedings for compensation and of the subsequent proceedings before the Constitutional Court had been a breach of his rights of personality, namely his right to reputation. From the content of his constitutional complaint, it was evident that he had, in substance, raised the same grievances concerning the violation of his right to reputation which he had subsequently raised in his application to the Court. His constitutional complaint had been drafted in a professional manner and had provided the domestic courts with a reasonable opportunity to remedy that violation. He had therefore done everything that could reasonably have been expected of him to exhaust domestic remedies. 43. As regards the case-law examples provided by the Government (see paragraph 41 above), the applicant pointed out that some of them were not relevant, inter alia, because they concerned complaints of a breach of the right to freedom of expression. In all other cases provided by the Government in which the complainants had complained of a breach of their right to reputation and relied on Article 8 of the Convention and/or Article 35 of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court had dismissed their constitutional complaints in a cursory fashion, without undertaking any balancing exercise between the respective rights and interests. The applicant therefore averred that even if he had explicitly relied on Article 8 of the Convention and/or Article 35 of the Constitution, his constitutional complaint would not have had any prospect of success.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 8
Outcome: no_violation