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The Honourable Mr Justice Warby of the High Court of Justice upheld a summary judgment application against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), according to which the publisher of the Mail on Sunday newspaper, had misused HRH The Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle) private information by publishing a private letter addressed to her father. HRH applied to the court under rules 3.4(2)(a) and 24.2 of the Civil Procedure Rules to have ANL’s defence struck out. Rule 3.4(2(a) allows the court to strike out a defence or part of it “if it appears to the court … that the statement of...

On 11 February 2021, the District Court of Midden-Nederland (Rechtbank Midden-Nederland) delivered a notable judgment on a government ministry’s refusal to release documents to the media relating to the Flight MH17 disaster, following a freedom of information request under the Public Access to Government Information Act (Wet openbaarheid van bestuur) (WOB) (see also IRIS 2021-2/9). The Court held that the release of certain documents could be refused, due to the potential harm caused to “relations of the Netherlands with other states and with international organisations”....

In the two judgments of 16 February 2021 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has highlighted the positive obligations of the member states to combat hate speech (see also Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuania, IRIS 2020-3/21). The ECtHR found that incitement to hatred, violence and discrimination cannot rely on the protection of freedom of expression when the offensive expressions clearly harm the privacy rights of the victims of hate speech, in casu Roma and Jews. The member states have a duty under Article 8 in combination with Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)...

On 9 December 2020, the District Court of Amsterdam (Rechtbank Amsterdam) delivered an important judgment on the liability of vloggers and social media influencers for audiovisual content published without consent on YouTube and Instagram which violates the right to private life. The judgment contains important principles on the filming of private individuals in public areas without consent, and the subsequent publication of such videos on large video-sharing platforms such as YouTube.     The case arose in May 2018, when the defendant, a well-known Dutch musician and vlogger,...

A new edition of Article 128-1 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code was adopted by the State Duma on 23 December and signed by the President on 30 December 2020. It introduces harsher penalties for slander, or the dissemination of intentionally false information that defames a person, “or a number of persons that are not individually defined”. It specifies that slander disseminated online or in the mass media shall now be punished with a fine of up to one million Russian rubles (RUB) - about EUR 11 000 - or up to two years' imprisonment; slander by those holding a management...