Chamber judgment concerning Romania
30/11/2021
In the case of Țiriac v. Romania, the Court found no violation of the right to respect for private and family life.
The applicant, a former tennis player and former president of the Romanian Olympic Committee, who is also considered as one of the richest persons in Romania, had complained of the dismissal by the Romanian courts of his claim brought following the publication in the Financiarul newspaper of an article which he had considered defamatory. The article had concerned the business activities and practices of some of the wealthiest people in Romania and the effect of those activities on the system of public tax collection.
The Court considered that the article had been a combination of value judgments and statements of fact which were supported by a sufficient factual basis, and that it had not had any discernible negative effect on the applicant’s life since it had not been written in bad faith.
Chamber
-
Judgment concerning Croatia
25/11/2021
In the case of Baljak and Others v. Croatia, the Court has found a violation of the right to a fair hearing.
The applicants are the relatives of a man who disappeared after having been detained by Croatian soldiers during the “Operation Storm” military campaign in 1995; his body was found in 2002 in a mass grave, together with the bodies of the other men taken with him. The applicants complained about the Croatian courts’ dismissal of their claim for damages against the State on the grounds that they had failed to prove that the State was responsible for their relative’s death.
The Court found that the Croatian courts had imposed an unattainable standard of proof on the applicants, which was particularly unacceptable in view of the seriousness of the acts concerned.
... -
Judgment concerning Italy
25/11/2021In the case of Biancardi v. Italy, the first in which it examined whether a journalist’s civil liability for not de-indexing information published on the Internet was compatible with Article 10 of the Convention, the ECHR has held that there was no violation of the right to freedom of expression.
The applicant, a former editor-in-chief of an online newspaper, complained before the Court about the fact that he had been found liable in civil proceedings for having kept on his newspaper’s website an article reporting on a fight in a restaurant, giving details about the related criminal proceedings. He had not de-indexed the tags to the article, meaning that anyone could type into a search engine the name of the restaurant or its owner and have access to sensitive information on the criminal proceedings, despite the owner’s request to have the article removed.
In the Court’s view, not only can Internet search engine providers be obliged to de-index material, but so also can administrators of newspaper or journalistic archives that are accessible through the Internet, such as the applicant.
...
Grand Chamber
-
Forthcoming delivery
30/11/2021
The Court will be delivering a Grand Chamber ruling in the case of Savran v. Denmark on 7 December 2021.
In this case, the applicant, a Turkish national who suffers from a psychiatric illness, was convicted in Denmark and an order was made for his expulsion. He complains that, owing to his mental health, his rights would be violated if he were to be returned to Turkey.
Webcast of the hearing (24/06/2020)
...
Delivered Judgments & Decisions
Forthcoming Judgments & Decisions
02/12/2021