FIRST SECTION
CASE OF FRANCIŠKOVIĆ v. CROATIA
(Application no. 1313/20)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
30 April 2026
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Francišković v. Croatia,
The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Frédéric Krenc, President,
 Davor Derenčinović,
 Alain Chablais, judges,
and Liv Tigerstedt, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 1313/20) 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”) on 19 December 2019 by a Croatian national, Mr Marko Francišković (“the applicant”), who was born in 1970 and lives in Zagreb, and was represented by Ms I. Bojić, a lawyer practising in Zagreb;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Croatian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms Š. Stražnik;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 26 March 2026,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns civil proceedings in which the applicant was ordered to pay compensation to G.R. as a result of a statement which the applicant had made against him. 2. In 2013 the applicant ran for a local political office in Zagreb. 3. At the relevant time he was vice president of an association called Pravednik and N.K. was its president. G.R. was director of the public broadcasting organisation Croatian Radio‑Television (hereinafter “HRT”). 4. On 8 May 2013 the applicant and N.K. appeared on the premises of HRT to record a statement presenting the electoral list for the City Assembly of Zagreb, of which the applicant was the lead candidate. 5. He began presenting as follows:
“So, all of us who live in this country know that this regime is that of thieves [and] bandits, that it has done its fair share of stealing, that it has robbed us and that it has systematically been doing this all the time. There, even now as I am saying this, as you are watching this, we are still being robbed. How [do we] stop them? Very simply, give us your vote ...”
6. An HRT employee interrupted him and told him that his remarks were hateful. The applicant then began his presentation again but was once more interrupted by the HRT employee, following which the time allotted to him to present his electoral list had run out. The applicant and N.K., who had filmed the entire event, then left the premises of HRT. 7. Subsequently, in front of the main building of HRT, the applicant commented on the above event and was filmed by N.K. The recording was published on the same day on the YouTube channel of the Pravednik Association entitled “Marko Francišković causes panic and fear at the HRT! 8 May 2013” and included the following passages:
“N.K.: Marko, say something about that recording of the show about how those bandits interrupted you. The applicant: Yes, yes, well, luckily, [N.K.], you managed to record it there from the studio, how she barged in and started saying that I shouldn’t have that, that it was hate speech when I had said that they were bandits. Of course, then they disrupted my whole concept, I had to repeat myself, which I never do, that’s the worst thing for me, having to repeat something I’ve already said. So then, well, the second recording turned out much worse and I was quite angry and upset with that approach, you know, and those three minutes they give us, which are ridiculous, you know, and then they censor even that on Channel 4, which is the least watched, but still they have to keep everything under some kind of control, showing how afraid they are of the truth. And that just confirms again what cowards they are, what miserable people they are. N.K.: Marko, did you expect this or were you surprised? I think you weren’t really surprised, right? Or were you? The applicant: Well, I was [surprised] because we hadn’t even started, I hadn’t even begun the main part. I had only said that they were bandits. And then, in the second recording, I had started listing names and I had wanted to add that we would make them clear minefields and that we would confiscate their property, but time ran out. N.K.: Unfortunately, yes. The applicant: Time ran out, I didn’t even manage to finish the sentence ... The guy on the other side signalled that it was over so I stopped, then they signalled to continue, so I went on ... N.K.: Yes, yes, yes. The applicant: When I said, ‘let’s repeat it’, they said we can’t repeat [it again], only twice, and the first time was when she had barged in. What can you say, I mean, it’s a bandit gang, it’s, well, part of their people here, this Bill Gates, his errand boy ... N.K.: Yes, yes, yes. Bandits. The applicant: What’s his name, [G.R.], the former, no, also the current collaborator of [the Counterintelligence Service (Kak’ se zove, [G.R.], bivši, ne, i daljnji suradnik KOS‑a)]. N.K.: [the Counterintelligence Service], yes, yes, yes. The applicant: And, well, that’s it. So, such people ... [unintelligible]
N.R.: So, a message for the Croatian public, especially in Zagreb: [vote for] no. 6, right? The applicant: [Vote for] no. 6, well, if you want to instil fear in these structures, if you want to see how weak they are, what cowards they are, give us your vote, give it to no. 6 and you’ll see how frightened they’ll be. Every vote you give us, even though we know they will falsify it, they will still know how much support we have and how afraid they are.”
8. On 31 October 2013 G.R. brought a civil action for damages in the amount of 50,000 Croatian kunas (HRK) against the applicant claiming that the latter’s statement portraying him as a member of the notorious Counterintelligence Service of the former State (hereinafter “the CIS”) was untrue and that it had caused him damage. He had publicly denied any involvement with the CIS at a press conference held in November 2012, at which a journalist, referring to information previously published in a political magazine, had asked him whether he had been an associate of the CIS. 9. The applicant contested G.R.’s action, explaining that he did not know that the statement he had made was untrue, as there had been ample evidence to support its truthfulness. As evidence he submitted copies of several articles which had been published on the internet before he had made his statement. The applicant stressed that he had made the impugned statement only once, after he had been censored by HRT without any explanation. He also stressed that he had not uploaded the disputed recording to YouTube, nor had he recorded it. 10. On 15 July 2016 the Zagreb Municipal Court partially upheld G.R.’s claim and ordered the applicant to pay him HKR 30,000 (equivalent to approximately 3,980 euros (EUR)) in damages and reimburse him the costs of the proceedings in the amount of HRK 10,199 (approximately EUR 1,350). The court found that it had not been established that the allegation concerning G.R. was true and that such an allegation was objectively capable of causing him damage. 11. An appeal lodged by the applicant was dismissed by a decision of the Osijek County Court of 27 August 2019, which endorsed the reasoning of the Municipal Court. 12. On 18 October 2017 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint, alleging, inter alia, that his right to freedom of expression had been violated. 13. In a decision of 26 June 2019, the Constitutional Court, by a majority, dismissed the applicant’s constitutional complaint. After balancing the opposing rights, the Constitutional Court held that the applicant and G.R. were public persons, that the applicant had not acted in good faith and that his sole intention had been to insult G.R. Moreover, it found no grounds to conclude that there had been any public debate regarding G.R.’s alleged collaboration with the CIS. In this respect, it emphasised that any allegation of a connection with the CIS bore an extremely negative connotation, such that individuals implicated in that context inevitably faced contempt and disparagement within the society. The Constitutional Court further considered that the lower courts’ characterisation of the applicant’s statement as one of fact had not in and of itself, in the specific circumstances of the case, violated the applicant’s right to freedom of expression. 14. Before the Court, the applicant complained under Article 10 of the Convention of a violation of his right to freedom of expression. He also complained, under Article 6, that the proceedings had been unfair on account of the domestic courts’ decisions regarding the hearing of the witnesses he had proposed.

Outcome for Article 10: violation