Blocking without a legal basis users’ access to YouTube infringed the right to
receive and impart information
 
In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Cengiz and Others v. Turkey (applications
nos. 48226/10 and 14027/11) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned the blocking of access to YouTube, a website enabling users to send, view and share videos.

The Court found in particular that the applicants, all academics in different universities, had been prevented from accessing YouTube for a lengthy period of time and that, as active users, and having regard to the circumstances of the case, they could legitimately claim that the blocking order in question had affected their right to receive and impart information and ideas. The Court also observed that YouTube was a single platform which enabled information of specific interest, particularly on political and social matters, to be broadcast and citizen journalism to emerge.

The Court also found that there was no provision in the law allowing the domestic courts to impose a blanket blocking order on access to the Internet, and in the present case to YouTube, on account of one of its contents.

The Court delivers its Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Perinçek v. Switzerland
 
In today’s Grand Chamber judgment1 in the case of Perinçek v. Switzerland (application no. 27510/08) the European Court of Human Rights held, by a majority, that there had been:
a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerned the criminal conviction of a Turkish politician for publicly expressing the view, in Switzerland, that the mass deportations and massacres suffered by the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and the following years had not amounted to genocide.
Being aware of the great importance attributed by the Armenian community to the question whether those mass deportations and massacres were to be regarded as genocide, the European Court of Human Rights held that the dignity of the victims and the dignity and identity of modernday
Armenians were protected by Article 8 (right to respect for private life) of the Convention. The Court therefore had to strike a balance between two Convention rights – the right to freedom of expression and the right to respect for private life –, taking into account the specific circumstances of the case and the proportionality between the means used and the aim sought to be achieved.
The Court concluded that it had not been necessary, in a democratic society, to subject Mr Perinçek to a criminal penalty in order to protect the rights of the Armenian community at stake in the case.
In particular, the Court took into account the following elements: Mr Perinçek’s statements bore on a matter of public interest and did not amount to a call for hatred or intolerance; the context in which they were made had not been marked by heightened tensions or special historical overtones in Switzerland; the statements could not be regarded as affecting the dignity of the members of the Armenian community to the point of requiring a criminal law response in Switzerland; there was no international law obligation for Switzerland to criminalise such statements; the Swiss courts appeared to have censured Mr Perinçek simply for voicing an opinion that diverged from the established ones in Switzerland; and the interference with his right to freedom of expression had taken the serious form of a criminal conviction.

A university’s right to reputation under the European Convention is more limited than that of an individual’s
 
In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of Kharlamov v. Russia (application no. 27447/07) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:
a violation of Article 10 (right to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerned a civil action in defamation brought against Mr Kharlamov, a university professor, by his employer, Orel State Technical University, after he expressed the view that the University’s governing body could not be considered legitimate due to shortcomings in the election procedure.
The Court found that the domestic courts, in their decisions against Mr Kharlamov, had notably failed to take into account the specific features of academic relations. In particular, the protection of a university’s authority or reputation under the Convention could not be equated to that of an
individual’s. Focusing their attention entirely on Mr Kharlamov’s description of the elected senate as illegitimate, the domestic courts had therefore failed to strike a fair balance between the need to protect the University’s reputation and Mr Karlamov’s freedom to express his opinion on the organisation of academic life.

Conviction of journalists for an interview using a hidden camera infringed their freedom of expression
In its Chamber judgment issued today in the case of Haldimann and Others v. Switzerland (application no. 21830/09), the European Court of Human Rights held, by a majority, that there had been:
A violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerned the conviction of four journalists for having recorded and broadcast an interview of a private insurance broker using a hidden camera, as part of a television documentary intended to denounce the misleading advice provided by insurance brokers.
In this case, the Court was for the first time called on to examine an application concerning the use of hidden cameras by journalists to provide public information on a subject of general interest, whereby the person filmed was targeted not in any personal capacity but as a representative of a particular professional category.
The Court considered that the interference in the private life of the broker, who had turned down an opportunity to express his views on the interview in question, had not been serious enough to override the public interest in information on malpractice in the field of insurance brokerage.