No defamation for deceased grandfather
ECHR Article 8-1
Respect for private life
Dismissal of claim for defamation of applicant’s grandfather, the former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin: inadmissible
Facts – The applicant is the grandson of the former Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. In 2009 he sued the Novaya Gazeta newspaper for defamation after it published an article accusing leaders of the Soviet Politburo, including Stalin, of being ‘bound by much blood’ in the order to execute Polish prisoners of war at Katyn in 1940. The article described Stalin as a ‘bloodthirsty cannibal’ and also alleged that the Soviet leaders had ‘evaded moral responsibility for the extremely serious crime’. The District Court dismissed the claim after finding that the article contributed to a factual debate on a question of profound historical discussion and that Stalin’s role as a world-famous figure called for a higher degree of tolerance to public scrutiny and criticism.
The newspaper subsequently published a further article giving the background to the defamation proceedings. The applicant again sued, but his claim was dismissed on the grounds that the article constituted an expression of the author’s view of the initial defamation proceedings.
Law – Article 8: The Court reaffirmed the principle that publications concerning the reputation of a deceased member of a person’s family might, in certain circumstances, affect that person’s private life and identity and thus come within the scope of Article 8 (see Putistin v. Ukraine, 16882/03, 21 November 2013, Information Note 168). However, it distinguished between defamation of a private individual (as in Putistin), whose reputation as part and parcel of their families’ reputation remains within the scope of Article 8, and legitimate criticism of public figures who, by taking up leadership roles, expose themselves to outside scrutiny.
In the applicant’s case, the newspaper’s publication of the first article had contributed to a historical debate of public importance, concerning Joseph Stalin and his alleged role in the Katyn shootings. The second article concerned the author’s interpretation of the domestic court’s findings and could therefore be seen as a continuation of the same discussion. Furthermore, the Katyn tragedy and the related historical figures’ alleged roles and responsibilities inevitably remained open to public scrutiny and criticism, as they presented a matter of general interest for society. Given that cases such as the present one required the right to respect for private life to be balanced against the right to freedom of expression, the Court reiterated that it was an integral part of freedom of expression, guaranteed under Article 10 of the Convention, to seek historical truth.
In conformity with the principles laid down in the Court’s case-law, the national courts had considered that the articles contributed to a factual debate on events of exceptional public interest and importance, had found that Stalin’s historic role called for a high degree of tolerance to public scrutiny and criticism of his personality and actions, and had taken the highly emotional presentation of the opinions outlined within the articles into consideration, finding that they fell within the limits of acceptable criticism.
The national courts had thus struck a fair balance between the applicant’s privacy rights and journalistic freedom of expression.
Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).
41123/10 – Legal Summary, [2014] ECHR 1448
Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights
Human Rights, Media, Defamation
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.569487