NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

revealed details of people’s private lives by invading their privacy. As to the content of the article, the Court noted that the prior disclosure by Mr Hallyday himself of the relevant information was an essential element of the analysis of the applicant company’s interference with the singer’s private life. His disclosure had weakened the degree of protection to which he was entitled regarding his private life, as it was by then widely known news. The opposite situation was seen in the case of Hachette Filipacchi Associés v. France, 871 where the applicant newspaper published a two-page colour photograph of the dead body of the prefect of Corsica, Mr Claude Erignac. The photo had been published in Paris-Match, the weekly magazine owned by the applicant company, only 13 days after the murder and ten days after the funeral of the prefect. 872 It showed the prefect’s lifeless body lying on the ground in a pool of blood. It was clear that the result of the publication in a magazine with a very high circulation heightened the trauma felt by the victim’s close relatives. Mr Erignac’s widow and children sought injunctions to have the copies of the magazine in which the photo appeared seized. The national courts, nonetheless, in due respect to the editorial freedom of Paris Match , which was characterised in particular by its policy of illustrating stories with hard-hitting photographs, only issued an order requiring the magazine to publish a statement explaining that the photograph of the murdered prefect had been distributed without the family’s consent. The Court then examined to what extent the punishment might have a dissuasive effect on the exercise of freedom of the press. It came to the conclusion that the order to publish the statement was the least restricted sanction concerning the exercise of the applicant company’s rights. Consequently, there had not been an infringement of Article 10 of the Convention. The case of Axel Springer AG v. Germany 873 concerned a well-known television actor and a company’s prohibition on reporting his arrest and conviction. The applicant company was the publisher of a national daily newspaper with a large-circulation. It published a front-page article about the star of a popular television series who had been arrested at the Munich beer festival for possession of drugs. The actor obtained an injunction restraining any further publication of the article or photographs and the company was additionally ordered to pay a fine. When examining the circumstances of the case, the Court noted that the article had not revealed details about the actor’s private life, but had mainly concerned the circumstances of his arrest and the outcome of the criminal proceedings. It had not been shown that the publication had resulted in serious consequences for the actor. The Court, in conclusion, ruled that the sanctions imposed on the applicant company were capable of having a chilling effect and were not justified. Consequently, the restrictions applied to the company had not been reasonably proportionate to the legitimate aim of protecting the actor’s private life. 874

Hachette Filipacchi Associés , cited above.

871

872 VOORHOOF, D., cited above. 873

Axel Springer AG [GC], cited above. 874 MANZA, K. Meaningful Journalism or ”Infotainment”? The Failure to Define the Public Interest in Axel Springer AG v. Germany , 36 B.C. Int‘l & Comp. L. Rev. 61 (2014).

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