European Court of Human Rights

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

 

534

17.07.2008

 

Press release issued by the Registrar

 

CHAMBER JUDGMENT
RIOLO v. ITALY

 

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment[1] in the case of Riolo v. Italy (application no. 42211/07).

 

The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights on account of the applicant’s conviction for defamation of a local politician in Palermo.

 

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 60,000 euros (EUR) in respect of pecuniary damage and EUR 12,000 for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in French.)

 

1.  Principal facts

 

The applicant, Claudio Riolo, is an Italian national who was born in 1951. He is a researcher in political science at the University of Palermo.

 

The case concerned the applicant’s conviction for defamation following the publication of an article entitled “Mafia and law. Palermo: the province versus itself in the Falcone trial. The strange case of Mr Musotto and Mr Hyde”.

 

The article was published in November 1994 in the newspaper Narcomafie. In it, the applicant criticised the supposedly ambiguous conduct of Mr Musotto, a lawyer at the Palermo Bar and President of the Province of Palermo. Mr Musotto was representing one of the accused in the criminal proceedings concerning the murder of Giovanni Falcone – a judge engaged in the fight against the Mafia – while the question whether the Province of Palermo should join the proceedings as a civil party was under discussion.

 

In April 1995 Mr Musotto brought a civil action for damages against the applicant, alleging defamation. In May of that year the article was re-published in Narcomafie and in the national daily newspaper Il Manifesto. It was signed by the applicant and 28 other persons, including politicians, representatives of non-governmental organisations, lawyers and journalists.

In March 2000 the Palermo District Court ordered the applicant to pay Mr Musotto approximately EUR 36,151 in respect of non-pecuniary damage, plus interest at the statutory rate, to pay compensation of approximately EUR 5,164 and to reimburse legal costs to the tune of EUR 3,300. The District Court considered, in particular, that the applicant had launched a personal attack on Mr Musotto, and that the “average reader” would conclude after reading the impugned article that Mr Musotto championed Mafia interests and was influenced by them in his political and professional activities.

 

In November 2002 the Palermo Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal lodged by Mr Riolo and ordered him to pay the defendant’s legal costs, amounting to EUR 3,700. The court emphasised, among other things, that some of the expressions used had exceeded the limits of acceptable criticism of Mr Musotto’s situation. Referring in particular to the article’s heading and to a passage in which the applicant had described Mr Musotto as a “clumsy imitator [of Silvio Berlusconi]”, the Court of Appeal took the view that the article damaged the lawyer’s reputation and contained serious insinuations which lacked any objective factual basis. Finally, in that court’s view, the article’s subsequent publication in a national newspaper had caused even greater damage to the complainant.

 

The applicant lodged an unsuccessful appeal with the Court of Cassation.

 

2.  Procedure and composition of the Court

 

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 14 September 2007.

 

Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:

 

Françoise Tulkens (Belgian), President,
Antonella Mularoni (San Marinese),
Ireneu Cabral Barreto (Portuguese),
Vladimiro Zagrebelsky (Italian),
Danutė Jočienė (Lithuanian),
Dragoljub Popović (Serbian),
András Sajó (Hungarian), judges,

and also Sally Dollé, Section Registrar.

 

3.  Summary of the judgment[2]

 

Complaints

 

Relying on Article 10 (freedom of expression), the applicant complained of his conviction for defamation.

 

Decision of the Court

 

Article 10

 

The Court observed that the article in question had been based on the situation in which Mr Musotto found himself at the relevant time. It was not for the Court to examine a possible incompatibility between the roles occupied by Mr Musotto; the fact remained, however, that the situation was undoubtedly capable of raising doubts as to the wisdom of the choices made by a senior local government representative in relation to a trial dealing with facts of an extremely serious nature. The applicant’s article had therefore formed part of a public-interest debate on a topic of general interest; this was all the more true given that, since September 1994, Mr Musotto’s dual role had been the subject of numerous articles in the press.

 

Mr Musotto was a politician who, at the relevant time, occupied a key post in local government. He could therefore expect his actions to be subjected to detailed scrutiny by the press. Moreover he knew, or should have known, that by continuing to defend one of the accused in a major Mafia trial in which the local authority of which he was President had the option of intervening, he was laying himself open to sharp criticism. However, that fact did not deprive Mr Musotto of the right to be presumed innocent and not to be the subject of completely unfounded accusations.

 

After examining the article, nevertheless, the Court took the view that it did not contain expressions openly implying that Mr Musotto had committed any offence or that he had protected Mafia interests. In its view, the statements made in the article could not be construed to mean that Mr Musotto had deliberately associated himself with Mafia circles. Rather, the applicant had expressed the view that a local government representative could be influenced, to some degree at least, by the interests of his or her voters. That was an opinion which did not overstep the limits of freedom of expression in a democratic society.

 

With regard to the ironic expressions used by the applicant, the Court reiterated that journalistic freedom also covered possible recourse to a degree of provocation. Moreover, the expressions used by the applicant had not amounted to insults and could not be said to be gratuitously offensive, but had been connected to the situation being reported on by the applicant. The Court also observed that the truth of the main factual information contained in the article had not been disputed.

 

In the circumstances, the applicant’s article could not be said to constitute a gratuitous personal attack on Mr Musotto.

 

Finally, in view of Mr Riolo’s financial situation, the fact that he had been ordered to pay the amounts in question had been liable to dissuade him from continuing to inform the public on matters of general interest.

 

Accordingly, the Court held that the applicant’s conviction amounted to disproportionate interference with his right to freedom of expression and could not be said to have been “necessary in a democratic society”. There had therefore been a violation of Article 10.

 

 

***

 

The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).

 

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.