Judgment concerning the Czech Republic
In the case of Tožičková v. the Czech Republic the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to freedom of expression.
The case concerned the arrest of a journalist during an environmental protest at a coal mine, more specifically, while she was in an area designated as out of bounds.
The Court found that the domestic courts had not provided adequate reasoning to justify the applicant’s arrest, the main effect of which had been to prevent the applicant, first, from performing her journalistic duties and communicating to the public information on a matter of general interest, and, secondly, from fulfilling her role as a “public watchdog” reporting on the police’s conduct towards the demonstrators. The applicant’s arrest had not met a pressing social need and could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society, taking into account also the narrow discretion enjoyed by the State in the present case.