Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 154

July 2012

Björk Eiðsdóttir v. Iceland - 46443/09

Judgment 10.7.2012 [Section IV]

Article 10

Article 10-1

Freedom of expression

Award of damages against journalist for publishing interview with strip dancer accusing her former employer of criminal conduct: violation

Facts – In 2007 there was a public debate in the Icelandic media on whether the regulations concerning strip clubs should be tightened or the clubs banned altogether. Following a first article on the topic – in which three strip dancers claimed that they were happy with their working environment – the applicant, a journalist, was contacted by a former dancer who offered to relate her experience working at a club. The applicant’s newspaper published an article based on an interview with the dancer, in which she spoke of prostitution at the club, her subsequent drug addiction and threats she had received in relation to her work. Alongside the interview, the newspaper published a reply by the club owner, rejecting the accusations made against him and the club. The owner subsequently brought defamation proceedings against the applicant, the newspaper editor and the former dancer, but later concluded a judicial settlement with the latter and withdrew his claim against her. The Supreme Court found the applicant liable in damages for defamation.

Law – Article 10: The Court accepted that, for the purposes of Article 10, the reasons relied on by the Supreme Court in finding the allegations defamatory under Icelandic law were relevant to the legitimate aim of protecting the rights and reputation of others. As to whether those reasons were also sufficient, the Court noted that the article seen as a whole had concerned a matter of serious public concern for Iceland at the material time. There had been an ongoing public debate on the matter and another magazine had previously published an article on the links between strip clubs and prostitution. By engaging in that line of business, the club owner had to be considered as having inevitably and knowingly entered the public domain, where the limits of acceptable criticism were necessarily wider than in the case of private individuals.

At the same time, the right of journalists to impart information on issues of general interest required that they act in good faith and on an accurate factual basis and provide reliable and precise information in accordance with the ethics of journalism. The impugned statements had originated from the former dancer, who had contacted the applicant herself in order to give her own account of her personal experience of the profession. She had later confirmed that her story had been accurately rendered and the club owner had subsequently withdrawn his libel claim against her. At the same time, the applicant had adduced evidence in support of the disputed statements, such as an incident report by the US Embassy and an interview in which the club owner had himself conceded that there had been incidents in his club where clients had been offered sexual services. The fact that the Supreme Court had omitted to deal with such factual arguments made it questionable whether the applicant had in fact been afforded a real opportunity to absolve herself of liability by establishing the truth of her allegations. Moreover, the applicant’s interview with the former dancer had been presented with counter-balancing elements: for example, reference was made to the earlier interview with the club’s dancers who rejected the negative comments and the owner had been afforded an opportunity to comment. News reporting based on interviews – whether edited or not – constituted one of the most important means of enabling the press to play its vital role of “public watchdog”. In these circumstances, the Court found that the applicant had acted in good faith, consistent with the diligence expected of a responsible journalist reporting on a matter of public interest, and could not be criticised for having failed to ascertain the truth of the disputed allegations. The domestic courts had thus failed to adduce sufficient reasons to show that the interference with her freedom of expression had been necessary in a democratic society.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

Article 41: EUR 5,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage; EUR 7,790 in respect of pecuniary damage.

(See also Erla Hlynsdóttir v. Iceland , no. 43380/10, 10 July 2012)

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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