NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

attacks in Arnhem. The publisher of the magazine complained in particular that the search had amounted to a violation of its right to protect its journalistic sources. The Court concluded that ‘source protection’ was not in issue in this case because the magazine’s informant, who was seeking publicity for the attacks under cover of the press, was not entitled the same protection ordinarily accorded to ‘sources’. The search, which had been carried out in order to investigate a serious crime and prevent further attacks, had therefore complied with the requirements under Article 10 of the Convention, notably the necessity in a democratic society to the prevent of crime. Therefore, the application was declared inadmissible. The protection of journalist sources is one of the strongest guarantees under Article 10 of the Convention. Further, we will analyse the limitation imposed in paragraph 1 of this Article concerning the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2.6.2.3 Licensing of companies The last sentence of paragraph 1 of Article 10 of the Convention says that the right to receive and impart information and ideas shall not prevent the CoE member states from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. This provision was adopted at an advanced stage of the preparatory work on the Convention due to technical reasons, namely, that at that time there was a limited number of available frequencies and most European states had a monopoly on broadcasting and television. 913 Gradually, the progress in broadcasting techniques made these reasons disappear and by 1993, in the case of Informationsverein Lentia and Others v. Austria , 914 the Court held the following: “As a result of the technical progress made over the last decades, justification for these restrictions can no longer today be found in considerations relating to the number of frequencies and channels available”. 915 In this case, the applicants complained that, in violation of Article 10, they had been unable to set up a radio station or, in respect of Informationsverein Lentia, a television station, as under Austrian legislation this right was restricted to the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. The Austrian government explained such legislation by the fact that the Austrian market was too small to sustain a sufficient number of stations to avoid regroupings and the constitution of ‘private monopolies’. The Court, nonetheless, was not persuaded by the government’s argument as it contradicted with the experience of several European states, of comparable size to Austria, in which the coexistence of private and public stations showed that the expressed fears were groundless. A few years later Austria again violated this provision of the Convention in the case of Tele 1 Privatfernsehgesellschaft mbH v. Austria. 916 The applicant company, Tele 1 Privatfernsehgesellschaft mbH, alleged that the Austrian authorities’ decisions refusing it a licence to set up and operate a television transmitter in the area of Vienna 913 MACOVEI, 2004, cited above, p. 13. 914 Informationsverein Lentia and Others v. Austria , 24 November 1993, Series a no. 276. 915 Ibid. , § 39. 916 Tele 1 Privatfernsehgesellschaft mbH v. Austria , no. 32240/96, 21 September 2000.

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