29 Oct An individual retains the right to be forgotten after a criminal conviction

In the case of M.L. v. Slovakia (application no. 34159/17, 14.10.2021) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned three 2006 newspaper articles about the applicant’s son – a former parish priest – after his passing, and the ensuing court proceedings. M.L.’s son was convicted separately of sexual abuse and threatening the moral education of young people (he had attempted to have non-consensual oral sex with a minor boy) and  disorderly  conduct  (because  of  consensual  oral  sex  with an adult man in a public place). The articles about him had combined certain elements from the criminal case files of the applicant’s son’s convictions with frivolous and unverified statements about his suicide.

Even though the domestic courts had found that priests could be treated as public figures, the applicant’s son had been, for the Court, not a well-known public figure or a high-ranking Church dignitary. It stated that an individual retains the right to be forgotten after a criminal conviction, especially a spent conviction, aiding his or her reintegration into society. In the present case, the Court noted the applicant’s son had completed his probation and the conviction had been spent. The Court reiterated that even a value judgment had to be based on sufficient facts to be considered fair under the Convention. The difference between a value judgment and a statement of fact ultimately lay in the degree of factual proof which had to be established. In the articles in question in this case, frivolous and unverified statements had been presented as the facts that had led to the applicant’s son’s convictions. This failure to distinguish value judgments had been particularly salient in relation to their reporting of the man’s passing. The Court found that the domestic courts had failed to carry out an adequate assessment of all the elements relevant to the matter and of the evidence available. Furthermore, the journalists’ frivolous statements had not been responsible journalism.

In line with previous cases, the Court accepted that the subject of sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic clergyman had been in the public interest. However, the sensationalist articles in this case had not made much of a contribution to the public discussion of this matter. Overall, the Court found that the domestic courts had failed to balance the applicant’s right to private life and the newspaper’s right to freedom of expression, leading to a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

References from the official website of the European Court of Human Rights