Communicated on 7 July 2020 Published on 27 July 2020

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 44261/19 Rita PAL against the United Kingdom lodged on 16 August 2019

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

This case concerns the arrest and prosecution of a freelance registered journalist on suspicion of harassment contrary to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

The applicant had been served with a prevention of harassment letter in 2011 asking her to stop sending emails to “AB”, a barrister and medical journalist. In 2014 she published an article about AB on a website and posted several Tweets indirectly related to him. Following a complaint by AB, the applicant was arrested at her home in Birmingham; handcuffed; and driven to London where she was interviewed and detained for around seven hours before being released on bail. Criminal proceedings were issued but were ultimately discontinued.

The applicant issued a claim for unlawful arrest, false imprisonment, assault and a breach of her rights under Article 10 of the Convention. A circuit judge dismissed the claim, finding that the arrest was lawful and that the decision to arrest and prosecute the a pplicant did not engage Article 10 of the Convention as it did not “interrupt, curtail and prevent” the exercise of her Article 10 rights. The High Court dismissed her appeal, finding that the judge had been entitled to conclude both that the arrest had been lawful and that the applicant could demonstrate no arguable claim that her Article 10 rights had been breached. Permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal was refused on the basis that the Article 10 claim was “hopeless and misconceived in its entirety”.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Did the applicant ’ s arrest and prosecution on suspicion of harassment contrary to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 violate Article 10 of the Convention?