NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

newspaper reports, which the Court found to be inconsistent with the Convention. 862 The applicant company was the owner of the widely-read, Austrian weekly magazine, News. The article in question, which led to the defamation proceedings, appeared about pending investigations concerning suspicions of large scale tax evasion by the managing director of a well-known market-leading enterprise that equipped police forces with pistols. The Court concluded that the applicant, as a public media, had the duty to communicate information and ideas on all matters of public interest. Due to his position in the country, the claimant was defined as a public figure. In addition, the article reported on a matter of public interest, namely on pending investigations concerning tax evasion. It also indicated that there could be a link between this business network and an attempted murder, which had taken place the year before. Therefore, it was possible to expect that such an article was capable of contributing to a public debate on the integrity of business leaders and the functioning of the justice system in respect of economic offences. Consequently, the Austrian Supreme Court’s approach, which excluded any weighing of the interests between the public interest and the business leader’s interest in having his identity protected, was not in harmony with human rights. The Supreme Court’s argument relating to the secrecy of the investigations for tax evasion could not outweigh the applicant’s right to publish reports on the investigations together with the impugned picture when reporting on the attempted murder issue. In a similar case filed again by the Verlagsgruppe News GmbH, 863 this time in respect of the publication titled Profil , the Court did not find a violation of Article 10 of the Convention. Relying on Article 10, the applicant company complained about an injunction prohibiting it from further publishing Mr Küchl’s picture in connection with allegations about unwanted homosexual advances towards seminarians or allegations about engaging in sexual antics with them. The difference between the cases, inter alia , was that Mr Küchl was not considered to be a public figure. 864 The Court noted that the claimant was a high-ranking dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church; however, he was not known to the public at large. Moreover, Mr Küchl had not contributed to public debate nor had he entered the public scene in any other way before the events which gave rise to the publication of the article at issue. Public figure status does not always signify that protection of privacy will be limited in favour of the right to freedom of expression. The Court found no violation of Article 10 on account of the decisions by which the domestic courts prohibited publication of a report concerning the drug addiction of the famous model Naomi Campbell in the case of MGN Limited v. the United Kingdom. 865 The case concerned damages awarded for a breach of confidence after the newspaper disclosed details of a celebrity’s therapy for drug addiction. It was observed that the publication of the 862 TORREMANS, P. Intellectual property and human rights: enhanced edition of Copyright and human rights. Alphen aan den Rijn : Kluwer Law International, 2008, p. 71. 863 Verlagsgruppe News GmbH and Bobi, cited above. 864 Court set for judgement in Catholics’ human rights complaints against Austria (online). URL: accessed 1 March 2015. 865 MGN Limited, cited above.

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