Maxim Ali has commented to AG on the ECHR ruling in case Novaya Gazeta v. Russia

The European Court of Human Rights has found no propaganda of extremist ideas in Novaya Gazeta article exposing the activities of a far-right nationalist movement. The newspaper had tried to challenge the warning issued by Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Informational technology, and Mass Media) for disseminating information containing signs of extremism for more than ten years, but lost in the Russian courts of first, appellate and cassation instances. The ECHR has described the content of the disputed article as “a contribution to public discussion of an issue of concern” and, has found a violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms/ In a result the ECHR has awarded the media outlets compensation for moral damage in the amount of 2,000 euros, as well as more than 2,200 euros in reimbursement of court expenses.

Maxim Ali, Partner and Head of IP/IT Practice at Maxima Legal, explained Advokatskaya Gazeta newspaper, that the warning issued by Roskomnadzor is not an innocent response from the government. A disclosure of extremist features repeated within 12 month  is grounds for media liquidation. “Given that the warning can hardly be considered relevant for Novaya Gazeta, there was still a point in challenging it in the ECHR. As a result, the newspaper was able to form a jurisprudence in its favour, which can be useful when considering similar cases. Moreover, this is not the only case of such warning against this media outlet”, said the expert.

According to Maxim, the dispute at hand generally boiled down to whether quoting extremist materials and using photos with swastikas violated the legislation on countering extremism. “In concluding that the warning was wrongly issued, the ECHR rightly drew attention to the nature of the article and the context in which it was distributed. The article itself was similar to the format of an investigative journalism, where the disputed information was quoted. The context of the publication was related to the anniversary of a political assassination in which nationalist organisations were involved. In addition, the court noted that the tone of the material was in principle negative towards extremism. The ECHR rejected the argument that the use of Nazi symbols (which were in the photos) was in principle illegal, including because such symbols were in recycled form,” Maxim Ali stressed.

The expert added that in this situation an analogy could be drawn with the position on the question of whether journalists should be responsible for the content of an interview: “As a general rule, they should not be responsible for the words of the interviewee. But there may be exceptions: for example there may have been abuses on the part of the journalist. Similarly, in this case, the journalists showed materials about a social movement that could have been extremist – but the context and presentation was such that there was no extremist propaganda on the part of Novaya Gazeta, rather the opposite. Therefore, the EtHR’s assessment seems quite reasonable to me”.

To read the full article (in Russian), please see Advokatskaya Gazeta website >>>