In the case of Bild GmbH v Germany [2023] ECHR 851 the Fourth Section of the European Court of Human Rights found that an order that a publisher should cease publication of CCTV footage of an arrest without pixelating the face of one of the officers involved was a violation of Article 10 as it could lead to an unacceptable ban on future publication on matters of public interest. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Category: Human Rights (Page 1 of 43)
Hate speech and violence against LGBTQI+ individuals are on the rise in Europe. In 2022, ILGA Europe reported an increase in both the number of cases of violence, as well as in their severity. As for hate speech, this was by no means limited to furtive cases; politicians in several countries (including Belgium) reportedly made numerous derogatory or hateful public statements concerning LGBTQI+ persons. Continue reading
In the wake of the digital revolution, questions surrounding the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten have come to the fore. With the digitalisation of press archives, what once required extensive archival research can now be discovered – even sometimes accidentally – through a simple online search. This is what led the Belgian Courts to order that Mr Hurbain anonymise an article in the online archive of the Le Soir newspaper. Before the European Court of Human Rights (the Court, ECtHR) Mr Hurbain argued that this order had violated his right to freedom of expression. Continue reading
On 15 May 2023 in the case of Sanchez v France, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) confirmed its earlier Chamber judgment of 2 September 2021 (see Inforrm post here). The ECtHR found that the criminal conviction of a politician for failing to promptly delete hate speech, that was posted by others, from his public Facebook account, did not violate Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Continue reading
In the aftermath of the long running libel clam by Bruno Lachaux against two newspapers, the United Kingdom government has accepted that the success fees recovered by the claimants breached Article 10 and has paid more than £500,000 to the defendants. Continue reading
In Zemmour v France [2022] ECHR 1130 (in French only), the Fifth Section of the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that the Article 10 right of the applicant, a journalist and political commentator, had not been violated by his conviction for inciting discrimination and religious hatred against the Muslim community in France under s.24 § 7 of the Freedom of the Press Act of 29 July 1881. Continue reading
In McCann and Healy v. Portugal ([2022] ECHR 725)(in French only), the Fourth Section of the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that the applicants’ Article 8 rights had not been violated by the publication of a book, a documentary programme, and a newspaper interview alleging that the applicants’ daughter had died inside their holiday flat and that the applicants had hidden her dead body and fabricated her abduction. Continue reading
There are three clauses of the Bill of Rights Bill [pdf] which, if enacted in their current form, would have a direct impact on freedom of expression cases. These are clauses 4 (‘Freedom of speech’), 21 (‘Limit on court’s power to require disclosure of journalistic sources’) and 22 (‘Limit on court’s power to grant relief that affects freedom of expression’). Continue reading
As we have seen, Raab claims that the Bill of Rights “helped mould a separation of powers between government, Parliament and the courts – a system of checks and balances to prevent any one branch of the state from dominating the others or abusing its power”. But as far back as 1976 the Conservative sometime Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, was warning that the parliamentary system could be exploited in such a manner that it could act as an ‘elective dictatorship’. Continue reading
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