Reputation Protection and Freedom of Expression in the European Court of Human Rights Practice

Abstract

The actuality of the research topic is stipulated by a number of factors. Science and technology and information technology intensive development has become a factor in changes in the field of human rights, influencing their content, forms and means of implementation, and has led to the new rights emergence. Particularly significant impact occurred on the rights enshrined in Art. 8 and Art. 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms providing for the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy. The European Court of Human Rights considers the right to reputation protection as a component of the right to privacy. It is noted that a clear and systematic understanding of the correlation between the right to freedom of expression and the right to reputation protection is the basis of effective law enforcement activities in this category of cases. The purpose of the article is to cover the main provisions of the European Court of Human Rights established practice in finding a balance between the right to freedom of expression and reputation protection in order to further improve national legal practice in this category of cases. The scientific novelty is stipulated by the clarification of the issues of finding a balance between the freedom of expression and reputation protection, which has been little studied by domestic legal science, through a systematic analysis of the European Court of Human Rights practice. Conclusions. The analysis of the European Court of Human Rights practice allowed to formulate the following provisions on the exercise of the right to freedom of expression in the context of reputation protection: freedom of expression is the basis of a democratic society; democracy is hardly possible without this right; reputation protection is carried out within the right to privacy protection; any person may be criticized in a democratic society (however, when it is acceptable criticism) and, accordingly, may be subject to invasion of privacy (the sphere of privacy of a public figure is smaller compared to the privacy of non-public persons); in finding a balance between freedom of expression and reputation protection, the general context of the case must be taken into account.

Keywords: European Court of Human Rights; reputation protection; right to privacy; right to freedom of expression; European Court of Human Rights practice.