FOURTH SECTION
CASE OF GANHÃO v. PORTUGAL
(Application no. 23143/19)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
4 March 2025
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Ganhão v. Portugal,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Tim Eicke, President,
 Ana Maria Guerra Martins,
 András Jakab, judges,
and Simeon Petrovski, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 23143/19) 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 17 April 2019 by a Portuguese national, Mr Miguel Alexandre Ganhão (“the applicant”), who was born in 1966, lives in Lisbon and was represented by Mr M. Bouza Serrano, a lawyer practising in Lisbon;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Portuguese Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr Ricardo Bragança de Matos, Public Prosecutor, and, from 1 September 2022, Mr Manuel Aires Magriço, Public Prosecutor.
the parties’ observations;
the decision to reject the applicant’s and the Government’s objections to the examination of the application by a Committee;
Having deliberated in private on 11 February 2025,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The applicant is a journalist and director of the economics section of Correio da Manhã, a well-known Portuguese tabloid newspaper. The application concerns his conviction of aggravated defamation on account of statements made regarding criminal proceedings for tax offences instituted against R., the executive director of an advertising company, in an opinion column published in the newspaper. The applicant relied on Article 10 of the Convention. 2. On 16 October 2014 the Correio da Manhã newspaper published an article entitled “Jail for advertising boss” reporting that R. had been convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to two years and six months’ imprisonment. It added that R. was going to lodge an appeal against his conviction. The article had been written by the applicant and was part of a news column called “Pure poison”, which was also available online. 3. R. lodged a criminal complaint and, by a judgment of the Lisbon Criminal Court, the applicant was convicted of aggravated defamation under Article 180 § 1 and Article 183 § 2 of the Criminal Code and was ordered to pay a fine of 2,400 euros (EUR). Furthermore, he was ordered to pay R. EUR 48,000 in compensation for pecuniary damage and EUR 25,000 for non-pecuniary damage, including interest. On 24 October 2018 the Lisbon Court of Appeal upheld that judgment. 4. The domestic courts established that R. was a very well-known and well-respected person in the world of advertising and found that the content of the article was untruthful and had damaged his honour and reputation. They noted that R. had been convicted of tax embezzlement rather than tax fraud and that although a prison sentence had indeed been imposed (see paragraph 2 above), it had been suspended for five years, under the condition of payment of an amount to the State Treasury. The domestic courts further held that the headline used by the applicant had been sensationalistic. Lastly, they found that the applicant had not been diligent nor had he acted in good faith, since he had relied on only two sources without attending the public reading of the judgment and without waiting for R. to confirm the veracity of the information. 5. Relying on Article 10 of the Convention, the applicant alleged that his conviction and the order for payment of damages had violated his right to freedom of expression.

Outcome for Article 10: violation