Communicated on 13 November 2017

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 12562/11 Mikhail Dmitriyevich LOBANOV against Russia lodged on 9 February 2011

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The applicant is a Russian national who was born in 1959 and lives in Perm.

The application concerns civil defamation proceedings brought by Mr S., who in 2007 had been a deputy head of a regional branch of the State construction inspection, following publication in the same year of an article penned by the applicant, a journalist. The article reported that a criminal case under the charges of fraud against Mr S. was pending. It also read that, despite the fact that Mr S. had been convicted of robbery and extortion in the past, he had failed to indicate so in his application for civil service. Mr S. was described, in particular, as “a criminal”, “an experienced self ‑ serving criminal”, and “a racketeer”. Mr S. brought proceedings against the applicant and the newspaper ’ s publisher seeking a retraction and non ‑ pecuniary damages. He argued that the record of his criminal convictions for robbery and extortion had been expunged by the time of the publication of the article. The applicant submitted before the courts that, despite the expungement, the fact that Mr S. had repeatedly committed serious crimes remained and accordingly could be referred to in the article. He also presented a copy of Mr S. ’ s application for civil service in which the latter had replies in the negative to the question “Have you ever been subject to criminal proceedings?” In 2010 the domestic courts acknowledged that the claimant had been convicted of robbery and extortion but found for the claimant for the reason that the criminal record for these crimes had been expunged and that in 2008 Mr S. had been acquitted in the criminal proceedings that had been pending at the time of the publication of the article. They ordered, among other things, that the applicant pay the claimant 10,000 Russian r oubles in non-pecuniary damages.

QUESTIONS tO THE PARTIES

Has there been a violation of the applicant ’ s right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention on account of the defamation proceedings brought by Mr S.? In particular, did the domestic courts give relevant and sufficient reasons to justify the alleged interference with the applicant ’ s right to freedom of expression? Did they apply standards which were in conformity with the principles embodied in Article 10 of the Convention? Did they base themselves on an acceptable assessment of the relevant facts (see OOO Izdatelskiy Tsentr Kvartirnyy Ryad v. Russia , no. 39748/05, § 46, 25 April 2017, and Terentyev v. Russia , no. 25147/09, § 24, 26 January 2017)?