NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

of his source or evidence thereof. 905 It means that journalists are obliged to reveal the identities and activities of their sources to judges. Turning back to the rights of Article 34 NGOs under the Convention in Europe, the Court dealt with the issue of protection of sources in the case of Financial Times Ltd and Others v. the United Kingdom. 906 The case concerned the complaint by four UK newspapers and one news agency 907 that had been ordered to disclose to “Interbrew”, a Belgian brewing company, documents that could lead to the identification of one of their sources. Mr Jones, a journalist at the Financial Times had received a copy of a leaked document from an undisclosed source, X., relating to a possible takeover bid by the Interbrew. He had telephoned the company’s investment bank advisers the same day to advise them on the document and the intention of the newspaper to publish it. The next day the article, describing that Interbrew had been plotting a takeover bid, was published by the newspaper and later by the other applicants. In order to facilitate investigation on the source of information, Interbrew sought and obtained an order requiring the applicants to disclose the leaked document. The applicants, however, did not deliver up the document and the disclosure order was enforced against them. The Court in this case reiterated that disclosure orders could have a detrimental impact not only on the source, but also on the media, whose reputation could be negatively affected in the eyes of future potential sources, and on members of the public, who had an interest in receiving information through anonymous sources and are the potential sources themselves. In view thereof, the Court considered that no crucial distinction could be made between a disclosure that would directly result in identification and a disclosure that might result in the identification of the source, as a chilling effect arose whenever journalists were seen to be assisting in the identification of anonymous sources. Therefore, it was sufficient that information or assistance had been required for the purpose of identifying X. In addition, it was relevant here that, despite receiving a prior notice of the intention to publish, Interbrew had not sought an injunction to prevent the initial publication. Accordingly, there had been a violation of Article 10 of the Convention, as the interest in eliminating damage through the future dissemination of confidential information was insufficient to outweigh the public interest in the protection of journalists’ sources. The Court also found a breach of the right to freedom of expression in the case of Sanoma Uitgevers B.V. v. the Netherlands 908 concerning police seizure of material that could have led to the identification of journalistic sources. The applicant company owned a car magazine that decided to publish an article describing illegal road racing. For this purpose, its journalists obtained permission from the organisers of one of these events to take photographs on condition that they did not disclose the participants’ identity. The photographs were stored on a CD-ROM of the magazine

Branzburg v. Hayes , cited above, p. 408.

905

906 Financial Times Ltd , cited above. 907 Financial Times Ltd; Independent News & Media Ltd; Guardian Newspapers Ltd; Times Newspapers Ltd; and Reuters Group plc. 908 Sanoma Uitgevers B.V. [GC], cited above.

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