Communicated on 24 March 2015

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 79584/12 Slava JURIŠIĆ against Croatia lodged on 14 November 2012

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Ms Slava Jurišić , is a Croatian national, who was born in 1954 and lives in Slavonski Brod . She is represented before the Court by Ms J. Špiranović , a lawyer practising in Slavonski Brod .

The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

The applicant is a local politician in Slavonski Brod .

On 23 October 2008 the applicant held a press conference where she alleged that the Mayor of Slavonski Brod was involved in various irregularities in the employment of civil servants in the local public institutions. The applicant thereby also alleged that Z.B. was employed as manager of a kindergarten run by the municipality although she did not have valid documents and only held the citizenship of the former Yugoslavia.

On 24 November 2008 Z.B. instituted private prosecution against the applicant in the Slavonski Brod Municipal Court ( Op ć inski sud u Slavonskom Bordu ) on charges of defamation related to the statement about her citizenship.

During the proceedings the applicant contended that she had wanted to show all irregularities in the employment of local civil servants by the Mayor and that she had learnt that Z.B. had requested Croatian citizenship only after she had been employed as manager of the kindergarten. The applicant also submitted that a deputy in the local assembly had provided her certain documents concerning Z.B. including an annulled citizenship certificate.

On 21 May 2010 the Slavonski Brod Municipal Court acquitted the applicant on the grounds that the material obtained during the proceedings showed that Z.B. had been registered in 1985 in the register of births of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was at the time one of the former Yugoslav republics. She had been registered as a Croatian citizen on 13 October 2008 whereas she lodged her application for employment in the kindergarten on 12 February 2008. In these circumstances, the Slavonski Brod Municipal Court considered that the applicant had managed to demonstrate the veracity of her statements.

On 23 May 2011, upon the appeal of Z.B., the Slavonski Brod County Court ( Ž upanijski sud u Slavonskom Brodu ) quashed the first-instance judgment and ordered a retrial on the grounds that all the relevant facts had not been properly established.

After a retrial, on 26 January 2012 the Slavonski Brod Municipal Court found the applicant guilty in charges of defamation and sentenced her to sixty days ’ imprisonment suspended for one y ear. It held that it was a well ‑ known fact that Yugoslavia no longer existed and that therefore Z.B. could not have the Yugoslav citizenship. Moreover, Z.B. had acquired the Croatian citizenship in 1992 but her citizenship certificate was later quashed in 2008 due to some administrative irregularities and then later she was issued with a new certificate. The Slavonski Brod Municipal Court therefore held that the applicant had uttered untrue information concerning Z.B. in public amounting to defamation.

The applicant appealed and on 30 May 2012 the Slavonski Brod County Court dismissed her appeal upholding the first-instance judgment.

The applicant then lodged a constitutional complaint before the Constitutional Court ( Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske ) complaining, inter alia , that her freedom of expression was violated by the judgments of the lower courts.

On 26 September 2012 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant ’ s constitutional complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.

The decision of the Constitutional Court was served on the applicant ’ s representative on 11 October 2012.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complains that her freedom of expression was violated by her criminal conviction for defamation.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Has there been a violation of the applicant ’ s right to freedom of expression, contrary to Article 10 of the Convention?

The Government are requested to submit two copies of all relevant documents in the applicant ’ s case.