CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 23 octobre 2008

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Russia - 10877/04 Judgment 23.10.2008 [Section I] Article 11 Article 11-1 Freedom of peaceful assembly Administrative fine imposed for holding an authorised and peaceful picket against corruption in a court: violation   Facts : In 2003 a small group including the applicant formed a picket in front of a regional court to attract public attention to violations of the   right of access to a court. They distributed press clippings and leaflets about the president of the regional court, who had allegedly been involved in corruption scandals, and collected signatures calling for his dismissal. The authorities were notified of the picket eight days beforehand. The police were ordered to maintain public order and traffic safety during the event. A few days after the picket, a deputy president of the regional court instructed the police to open administrative proceedings against the applicant who had allegedly misled the municipality as to the purpose of the picket and used the event to defame the court president. Subsequently, the applicant was found liable under administrative law and fined a sum equivalent to EUR 35 for having breached the procedure for organising and holding a public assembly. Law : The administrative prosecution had amounted to an interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of assembly, interpreted in the light of his right to freedom of expression. The interference was “prescribed by law” and pursued the “legitimate aims” of preventing disorder and protecting the rights of others. Three charges had been upheld against the applicant. Firstly, the courts had found that he had sent the picket notice belatedly; secondly, that he had obstructed passage to the court building; and thirdly, that the contents of the materials he had disseminated were at variance with the declared aims of the picket. As to the first charge, the applicant had indeed submitted the picket notice eight days before the planned event, whereas the applicable regulations stipulated a ten-day notification. However, it did not appear that the two-day difference had in any way impaired the authorities’ ability to make necessary preparations for the picket. Given the small scale of the planned event, the town administration had not considered the alleged delay in notification relevant or important. The delay had not been held against the applicant in any official documents and had not affected the lawfulness of the picket. In fact, that transgression had surfaced for the first time in the report on the administrative offence, which had been compiled six weeks after the assembly. In these circumstances, a merely formal breach of the notification time-limit was neither a relevant nor a sufficient reason for imposing administrative liability on the applicant. Freedom to take part in a peaceful assembly was of such importance that a person could not be subjected to a sanction – even one at the lower end of the scale of disciplinary penalties – for participation in a demonstration which had not been prohibited, so long as he or she did not himself commit any reprehensible act on such an occasion. As regards the alleged blocking of passage, there had been no complaints by anyone, whether individual visitors, judges or court employees, about the alleged obstruction of entry to the court-house by the picket participants. Even assuming that the presence of several individuals at the top of the staircase had restricted access to the main entrance, it was credible that the applicant had diligently complied with the officials’ request and without further argument had descended the stairs onto the pavement. Moreover, the alleged hindrance had been of an extremely short duration. As to the third ground for the applicant’s conviction, the domestic courts’ judgments had not contained any analysis as to what the alleged differences were between the declared aims of the picket and the content of the article the applicant had distributed during the picketing. Furthermore, the materials distributed by the applicant and the ideas he had advocated had not been shown to contain any defamatory statements, incitement to violence or rejection of democratic principles. Accordingly, however unpleasant the call for dismissal of the president of the regional court could have been to him and however insulting he may have considered the article alleging corruption in the regional court, it was not a relevant or sufficient ground for imposing liability on the applicant for the exercise of his right to freedom of expression and assembly. It was also a matter of concern for the Court that the alleged discrepancy between the aims of the picket and the disseminated materials had been raised for the first time in a letter addressed to the police by the official reporting directly to the president of the regional court who had been the target of criticism in the distributed publications. The terms employed in the letter, such as the statement that the picket participants had “committed thereby an administrative offence”, had prejudged the assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority and expressed the opinion that the applicant was guilty even before he had been proved guilty according to law. Lastly, the purpose of the picket had been to attract public attention to the alleged dysfunctioning of the judicial system in the region. This serious matter was undeniably part of a political debate on a matter of general and public concern. It had been the Court’s constant approach to require very strong reasons for justifying restrictions on political speech or serious matters of public interest such as corruption in the judiciary. However, the Russian authorities had not adduced any “relevant and sufficient” reasons which could have justified the interference with the applicant’s rights to freedom of expression and assembly. That the amount of the fine had been relatively small did not detract from the fact that the interference had not been “necessary in a democratic society”. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article 41 – EUR 1,500 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes