CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 9 janvier 2007

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Poland - 51744/99 Judgment 9.1.2007 [Section IV] Article 10 Article 10-1 Freedom of expression Applicant ordered to pay compensation for having circulated defamatory letter: violation   Facts : The applicant was a party to administrative proceedings before the District Office. The applicant considered that decisions of the District Office issued in his cases were incorrect and unlawful as evidenced by the fact that they had been quashed by higher administrative authorities. He formed that view on the basis of administrative proceedings where the District Office ordered him to demolish a building on his property as being illegally erected. Those proceedings, following the applicant's complaints, were discontinued by the District Office decision in which the authority held that the contested building had been erected legally. The applicant also referred to the District Office's decision by which he had been refused planning permission. The Governor, following the applicant's appeal, reversed the contested decision and issued the planning permission sought by the applicant. The Head of the District Office stood for election to the district council in the local elections scheduled. The applicant sent the Head an open letter wherein he called on him to withdraw from standing for election. The applicant sent copies of the letter to the Governor, the Regional Assembly, Municipal Council, local mayors, the Prime Minister's Office and a number of local newspapers. One thousand copies of the letter were to be made available to the inhabitants of the district. The Head brought an action against the applicant in the regional court which ordered the applicant to publish in a local newspaper and in a letter to the claimant, a statement that he had included untrue information in his open letter and to include an apology. The court also ordered the applicant to pay compensation for the benefit of a charity and compensation to the claimant in the form of damages. The court of appeal dismissed the applicant's appeal. Law : The general aim of the applicant's open letter had been to attract the voters' attention to the suitability of the Head as a candidate for local public office and, as such, the statements contained in the letter were a matter of public interest for the local community. The domestic authorities had failed to recognise that the case involved a conflict between the right to freedom of expression and the protection of the reputation and the rights of others. They had also given no consideration to the fact that the limits of acceptable criticism of someone heading a local administrative authority were wider than in relation to a private individual. Furthermore, they had unreservedly qualified all of the applicant's comments as groundless statements of fact. The Court considered however that the applicant's open letter also had included statements which could reasonably have been regarded as value judgments. The applicant had also provided specific examples of decisions issued by the District Office but subsequently quashed on appeal. The Court therefore found that the applicant's allegations that the Head did not run the District Office competently were not devoid of a factual basis. The applicant had not acted in bad faith and his statements were not a gratuitous personal attack on the Head but part of a debate on matters of public interest. The Court particularly noted the summary nature of the proceedings that were brought against the applicant. Neither the regional court nor the court of appeal had sufficiently examined the evidence adduced by the applicant which, at least to some extent, could be considered as justifying his critical remarks about the Head. On that account the fairness of the proceedings could be called into question. The court of appeal's judgment was amended one day after the local elections had taken place, by which time the proceedings had lost all relevance to the claimant's electoral prospects. Regarding the severity of the sanction imposed, the Court noted that both awards were the maximum amounts which could be imposed and that the domestic courts failed to provide any reasons to justify the imposition of such heavy sanctions or to carry out any assessment of proportionality. The Court found the sanctions to be excessive. Conclusion : violation (unanimously).   © 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