FOURTH SECTION
CASE OF WELSH AND SILVA CANHA v. PORTUGAL
(Application no. 58106/15)
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
30 August 2022
 
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Welsh and Silva Canha v. Portugal,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Armen Harutyunyan, President,
 Jolien Schukking,
 Ana Maria Guerra Martins, judges,
and Ilse Freiwirth, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 58106/15) against the Portuguese Republic lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 18 November 2015 by two Portuguese nationals, Mr Eduardo Pedro Welsh and Mr Gil da Silva Canha (“the applicants”), who were born in 1967 and 1961 respectively and live in Funchal (Madeira), and were represented before the Court by Mr F. Teixeira da Mota, a lawyer practising in Lisbon;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Portuguese Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M.F. da Graça Carvalho, Deputy Attorney General;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 5 July 2022,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns a judgment given by the Lisbon Court of Appeal against the applicants in relation to three articles published in a local satirical newspaper. The applicants complained of a breach of their right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention. 2. The applicants are journalists and respectively the editor and deputy editor of the newspaper called Garajau, with a fortnightly circulation of 500 copies in Madeira. 3. On 15 December 2006, 23 March and 2 November 2007 the newspaper published three articles regarding an ongoing criminal case concerning the management of the Port of Madeira. 4. The articles followed other news reports previously published by well-known national newspapers with a much higher circulation, such as Sol and Diário de Notícias. 5. The relevant part of the article of 15 December 2006 stated as follows:
“Garajau has learnt [teve conhecimento][1] that the criminal police procured a CD containing highly compromising material disclosing two different accounting balance sheets for the corporation [managing the Port of Madeira] – a fake one, to be provided to the tax office, and a real one, for the internal use of the administrators.”
6. The relevant part of the article of 23 March 2007 stated as follows:
“To unload a ship in Caniçal is the same as unloading a pallet of money into the Orange Foundation[2]”. 7. L.S., a well-known businessman and a member of the board of directors of the private company managing the Port of Madeira, instituted civil liability proceedings in the Funchal District Court, asserting that certain statements contained in the three articles had damaged his honour and reputation. 8. On 3 July 2014 the District Court ruled in favour of L.S. and the applicants were ordered to pay him 30,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage. 9. On 21 May 2015, following an appeal by the applicants, the Lisbon Court of Appeal reduced the award of compensation to EUR 15,000, finding that only two of the statements made in the articles published on 15 December 2006 and 23 March 2007 (see paragraphs 5-6 above), had damaged L.C.’s honour and reputation. 10. It found that the first statement had no factual basis since the applicants did not conduct a proper investigation thus were unable to prove their statements and that, as a result, the applicants had gone beyond the limits imposed by good faith and discretion. As to the second impugned statement, it was considered purely offensive, with no informative aim. 11. The applicants complained that the domestic court’s judgment in the defamation proceedings had resulted in a violation of Article 10 of the Convention.

Outcome for Article 10: violation