NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

photographs of Ms Campbell using drugs, the sole purpose of which was to satisfy the curiosity of a particular readership regarding the details of a public figure’s private life, could not be deemed to contribute to any debate of general interest to society despite the person being known to the public. 866 A breach of Article 10 of the Convention in this case, however, took place in respect of the applicant company, a British national daily newspaper, The Daily Mirror , as to the so-called ‘success fees’. These fees derived from the system of legal aid, primarily set up for people who could not afford a lawyer, which was not the case of Ms Campbell. The Court concluded that the order requiring the applicant company to pay the success fees constituted interference with the right to freedom of expression and was crucial for the free impart of information. 867 It examined whether the interference was reasonable, proportionate and necessary to achieve the aims followed by the Convention. Taking into account the ‘chilling’ effect of the system, such pressure on defendants to settle defendable cases represented a risk to media reporting and thus to freedom of expression. The amount the applicant company paid in respect of success fees was substantial. In view of that, the requirement to pay success fees to the claimant was found to be disproportionate notwithstanding the broad margin of appreciation accorded to the states in such matters. 868 The other case with the participation of a well-known person was the case of Hachette Filipacchi Associés ( ICI PARIS ) v. France, 869 concerned a famous singer, Johnny Hallyday. The applicant company, Hachette Filipacchi Associés, which issues the weekly magazine Ici Paris , published an article about the singer, illustrated by a few photographs. The article was focused on the financial difficulties of Mr Hallyday and its negative impact on his career, as well on the way he exploited his name and image. 870 The singer took action against the applicant company. As a result, the domestic courts ordered the company to pay 20,000 euros in damages. The Court stressed that the offending article and the accompanying photos could not be regarded as having taken part in or contributed to a debate on a matter of general interest to the community. Therefore, the state enjoyed a broader margin of appreciation. Nevertheless, in the end, the Court found a breach of Article 10 of the Convention given that the nature of the pictures in this case was different and the information published in the article was of common knowledge. The nature of the published photos had been purely promotional, they had not been altered nor had their commercial character changed, and they had been used only to illustrate the information in the article. It was not the same as in those cases previously examined by the Court, in which the offending photographs had been obtained fraudulently or taken in secret, or had Ibid., § 143. 867 GOLDREIN, I. Privacy Injunctions and the Media : A Practice Manual. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, para. 112. 868 MGN Limited, cited above, § 220. 869 Hachette Filipacchi Associés ( ICI PARIS ) v. France , no. 12268/03, 23 July 2009. 870 VOORHOOF, D. Freedom of Expression under the European Human Rights System . From Sunday Times (N° 1) v. U.K. (1979) to Hachette Filipacchi Associés (“Ici Paris”) v. France (2009). URL: accessed 20 July 2015. 866

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