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Press release - Insufficient redress in Lithuanian breach of privacy judgments - 25.11.2008
EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
834
25.11.2008
Press release issued by
the Registrar
Insufficient redress in
Lithuanian breach of privacy judgments
The European Court of Human Rights has
today notified in writing two Chamber judgments1
– available only in English – in the cases of Armonas v.
Lithuania (application no. 36919/02) and Biriuk v.
Lithuania (no. 23373/03).
The Court held by six votes to one, in
both cases, that there had been a violation of
Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life)
of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the low ceiling
imposed on damages awarded to them on account of a serious breach of
their privacy by a national newspaper.
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of
the Convention, the Court awarded each applicant 6,500 euros (EUR)
in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
1. Principal facts
The applicants are two Lithuanian
nationals: Judita Armonienė, who lives in the village of
Ąžuolpamušio (Lithuania) and lodged the application with the
European Court of Human Rights on behalf of her husband, Laimutis
Armonas, born in 1963 and now deceased; and, Gitana Biriuk who was
born in 1970 and lives in the village of Kraštų (Lithuania).
The case concerned the applicants’
complaint that they were awarded derisory damages despite decisions
in their favour with regard to serious breaches of their privacy.
In January 2001 Lietuvos Rytas,
Lithuania’s biggest daily newspaper, published an article on its
front page concerning an AIDS threat in a remote part of Lithuania.
In particular, medical staff from the AIDS centre and Pasvalys
hospital were cited as having confirmed that Mr Armonas and Ms
Biriuk were HIV positive. Ms Biriuk, described as “notoriously
promiscuous”, was also said to have had two illegitimate children
with Mr Armonas.
Subsequently Mr Armonas and Ms Biriuk
sued, separately, the newspaper for a breach of their right to
privacy. In July 2001 and April 2002 the courts ruled in their
favour, finding that the article was humiliating and that the
newspaper had published information about Mr Armonas’ and Ms
Biriuk’s private life without their consent which did not
correspond to any legitimate public interest.
In Mr Armonas’ case, the courts
concluded that he had not proven that the newspaper had made the
information about him public intentionally and therefore, under
Article 54 § 1 of the Law on the Provision of Information to the
Public, awarded the maximum sum allowed in such circumstances,
10,000 Lithuanian litai (LTL) (approximately EUR 2,896).
In Ms Biriuk’s case, the courts first held that the article,
published with the aim of creating a sensation and increasing sales,
had deliberately sought to humiliate her and, under the same law,
tripled the statutory sum to LTL 30,000 (approximately
EUR 8,676). That amount was, however, subsequently reduced on
appeal to LTL 10,000 as, again, it had not been established that
the information had been published intentionally.
2. Procedure and
composition of the Court
The applications Armonas v.
Lithuania and Biriuk v. Lithuania were lodged
with the European Court of Human Rights on 2 October 2002 and
11 June 2003 respectively.
Judgment was given by a Chamber of
seven judges, composed as follows:
Françoise Tulkens
(Belgian), President,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto
(Portuguese),
Vladimiro Zagrebelsky
(Italian),
Danutė Jočienė (Lithuanian),
Dragoljub
Popović (Serbian),
Nona Tsotsoria
(Georgian),
Işıl Karakaş (Turkish), judges,
and
also Sally Dollé, Section Registrar.
3. Summary of the
judgment2
Complaint
Relying on Article 8 (right to respect
for private and family life), the applicants complained that, even
though the domestic courts had held that their right to privacy had
been seriously violated, they had been awarded derisory damages. In
particular, they alleged that the low ceiling on non-pecuniary
damages under Lithuanian law at the time, in effect, protected the
media from lawsuits concerning breach of privacy.
Decision of the Court
Article 8
In both cases, the Court saw no reason
to depart from the national courts’ conclusions which had
acknowledged that there had been an interference with the applicants’
right to privacy. In particular, the fact that Ms Biriuk and Mr
Armonas had lived in a village had increased the possibility that
neighbours and immediate family would be aware of their illness,
causing public humiliation and exclusion from village social life.
Similarly, the Court agreed with the domestic courts’ view that the
article had not contributed to any debate of general interest to
society.
Furthermore, the Court was particularly
concerned about the fact that, according to the newspaper, the
information about Ms Biriuk’s and Mr Armonas’ illness had been
confirmed by medical staff. It was crucial that domestic law
safeguarded patient confidentiality and discouraged any disclosures
on personal data, especially bearing in mind the negative impact of
such disclosures on the willingness of others to take voluntary tests
for HIV and seek appropriate treatment.
The Court concluded that, in such cases
of an outrageous abuse of press freedom, the severe legislative
limitations on judicial discretion in redressing the damage suffered
by the victim and therefore on deterring the recurrence of such
abuses, had failed to provide the applicants with the protection of
privacy they could have legitimately expected. Indeed, that view has
since been endorsed as the ceiling on judicial awards of compensation
contained in Article 54 § 1 of the Law on the
Provision of Information to the Public was repealed in July 2001 by
the new Civil Code.
Accordingly, the Court held that, in
both cases, there had been a violation of Article 8.
Judges Popović and Tsotsoria expressed
a partly dissenting opinion and judge Zagrebelsky expressed a
dissenting opinion, which are annexed to the judgments.
***
The Court’s judgments are accessible
on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).
Press contacts
Adrien
Raif-Meyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 33 37)
Tracey
Turner-Tretz (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30)
Sania
Ivedi (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 59 45)
The European Court of Human Rights was set up in
Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal
with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human
Rights.
1 Under Article
43 of the Convention, within three months from the date of a Chamber
judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request
that the case be referred to the 17-member Grand Chamber of the
Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the
case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or
application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of
general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a
final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will
reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final.
Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the
three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not
intend to make a request to refer.
2 This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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