Ageyevy v. Russia
18 April 2013
In 2008 the applicants, a married couple, adopted two small children (a boy and a girl).
Following an incident in March 2009 in which the boy was badly burnt at home and had
to go to hospital for treatment, the authorities took the children into care as they
suspected abuse. The mother complained in particular that the Russian courts had failed
to protect her reputation in defamation proceedings she had instituted in respect of
media reports describing her alleged ill-treatment of her son.
The Court held that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private
life) of the Convention on account of the Russian courts’ failure to protect the mother’s
right to reputation in the defamation proceedings against the media company concerned,
as it was not convinced that the reasons advanced by the courts regarding the protection
of the freedom of expression of the media company had outweighed the mother’s rights
to have her reputation and right to the presumption of innocence safeguarded. It was in
particular not evident that the domestic courts in the defamation proceedings had
attached any importance to the right to the presumption of innocence. Nor had they
examined closely whether the journalists had acted in good faith and had provided
reliable and precise information in accordance with the ethics of journalism. Moreover,
even though nothing in the case-file suggested that the journalists had not been acting
in good faith, they had obviously failed to take the necessary steps to report the incident
in an objective and rigorous manner, trying instead either to exaggerate or oversimplify
the underlying reality.
there you are again
