14 Jan The applicant’s conviction for defamation following a published article on the parliamentary candidate did not lead to a violation of Article 10 of the Convention
In the case of Prunea v. Romania (application 47881/11, 08/01/2019) the European Court of Human Rights found that there has not been a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights .
The case concerned a finding of defamation against the applicant, Petru Prunea, after he had written an article about a Parliamentary election candidate. In November 2008, ahead of a Parliament election, Mr Prunea wrote an article which questioned the honesty of a local candidate and accused him of taking out a loan to fund his electoral campaign, which he had refused to repay.
In April 2009 the candidate took Mr Prunea to court, alleging that the article had damaged his reputation and made him lose the election. He also complained about another article, written in January 2009, and leaflets distributed before the election.
In July 2009 the Cluj-Napoca Court of First Instance allowed the former candidate’s claim, ordering Mr Prunea to pay 20,000 euros in damages and just under 3,300 Romanian lei in costs. The court found that Mr Prunea had not proved that his statements were true. Even if they had been true, the statements had been defamatory and should have not been made in public, especially since they concerned matters of a private, commercial nature.
Relying in particular on Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Prunea complained about the court orders to pay damages.
The ECHR agreed with the domestic judicial authorities that the impugned statements were an attack on candidat’s reputation reaching the requisite level of seriousness and causing prejudice to personal enjoyment of his right to respect for private life under Article 8. Accordingly, the ECHR found no violation of Article 10 of the Convention.
References from the offical website of the European Court of Human Rights