European Court of Human Rights

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 179

November 2014

Braun v. Poland - 30162/10

Judgment 4.11.2014 [Section IV] See: [2014] ECHR 1189

Article 10

Article 10-1

Freedom of expression

Historian fined for damaging a well-known professor’s reputation as domestic law required non-journalists to prove veracity of their allegations: violation

Facts - The applicant, a film director, historian and author of press articles, referred to a well-known professor as a secret collaborator with the communist regime during a radio debate in 2007. In 2008 a regional court ordered the applicant to pay a fine and to publish an apology for having damaged the professor’s reputation. The applicant’s appeal was ultimately dismissed by the Supreme Court.

Law - Article 10: When balancing the applicant’s right to freedom of expression and the professor’s right to respect for his reputation, the domestic courts had distinguished between the standards applicable to journalists and those applicable to other participants in the public debate without examining whether such a distinction was compatible with Article 10 of the Convention. In fact, under the Supreme Court’s case-law the standard of due diligence and good faith was applied only to journalists, while others, such as the applicant, were required to prove the veracity of their allegations. As the veracity of the applicant’s statements could not be proven the domestic courts had considered them untrue and therefore illegal.

However, the issue of whether or not the applicant was a journalist under the domestic law was not of particular relevance for examining the complaint under Article 10, as the Convention offered protection to all participants in debates on matters of legitimate public concern. What mattered in the present case was that the applicant had clearly been involved in a public debate on an important issue. The Court was therefore unable to accept the approach which had required the applicant to fulfil a higher standard of proof than that of due diligence only on the ground that under the national law he was not considered a journalist. The reasons on which the Polish courts had relied could thus not be considered relevant and sufficient under the Convention.

Conclusion: violation (unanimously).

Article 41: EUR 8,000 in respect of pecuniary damage; EUR 3,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

(See also Vides Aizsardzības Klubs v. Latvia, 57829/00, 27 May 2004)

 

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