NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

The Court paid attention to the wording used by the applicants : “The Ivanovo Region courts held that the applicants failed to prove that Mr V. had acted ‘cynically, loudly, shamelessly’, that he had ‘created nothing, done nothing for [his] fellow townsmen’, that his professional activity as a State official had ‘brought nothing but harm’, or that he had lacked ‘wisdom, will, aspiration to promote unity in society by renouncing, at least temporarily, [his] ambitions and passion for wealth’”. 855 Considering the penalty (the sixth element) in the case, it was mentioned that, “…the applicants were ordered to pay damages ranging from 3,000 to 20,000 Rubles (approximately 85 to 575 euros). These amounts are not significant even by the regional standard of living. Nevertheless, the Court does not consider it decisive that the proceedings were civil rather than criminal in nature and that the final awards were relatively small. What is important in the instant case is that the domestic courts in all four sets of proceedings – albeit to a varying degree – held the applicants responsible for failing to prove the truthfulness of value judgments, that they did not assess the issue whether or not the publications contributed to a debate on a matter of public interest or general concern, and that they failed to recognise the wider limits of permissible criticism in respect of State officials and employees.” 856 On the basis of the analysis of all six elements, the Court came to the conclusion that there had been a breach of Article 10 of the Convention in all sets of the proceedings. 2.6.2 The most frequent reasons invoked On the basis of the Convention theory, it was already confirmed that Article 34 NGOs may enjoy guarantees under all three components of Article 10 of the Convention. Let us have a look at examples of alleged infringements of human rights as recognized by the Court. The most frequent claims invoked by these subjects were: 1) sanctions for defamation; 857 2) protection of journalistic sources; 858 and 3) licensing of broadcasting companies. 859 There are also many other complaints 860 under this provision of the Convention, but in view of their diversity, they will be covered in a separate part of this section of the book. 2.6.2.1 Sanctions for defamation The Court dealt with the cases relating to defamation proceedings usually in respect of Article 34 NGOs established as magazines or newspapers, as well as publishing companies. The case of Verlagsgruppe News GmbH v. Austria (no. 2) 861 concerned the absolute prohibition on publishing photographs of a business magnate alongside 856 Ibid ., § 79. 857 E.g. Editorial Board of Pravoye Delo and Shtekel v. Ukraine , no. 33014/05, ECHR 2011 (extracts). 858 E.g. Financial Times Ltd , cited above. 859 E.g. Glas Nadezhda EOOD , cited above. 860 E.g. Youth Initiative for Human Rights v. Serbia , no. 48135/06, 25 June 2013 and Perihan andMezopotamya Basın Yayın A.Ş. v. Turkey , no. 21377/03, 21 January 2014. 861 Verlagsgruppe News GmbH v. Austria (no. 2) , no. 10520/02, 14 December 2006. 855 Ibid ., § 73.

156