Published on 7 November 2022

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 10987/14 AZADLIQ and Ramin JABRAYILZADE against Azerbaijan lodged on 22 January 2014 communicated on 18 October 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The applicants are a newspaper and a journalist who worked for the newspaper. The application concerns civil proceedings instituted against the newspaper in connection with two articles authored by the second applicant and published in the newspaper in 2012 concerning the head of a large shopping centre, K.M. The articles discussed various alleged improper business practices by K.M. in relation to shop operators who leased business premises at the shopping centre. The plaintiff, K.M., claimed that the information published in the articles was false, slanderous and damaging to her professional reputation. The first-instance court upheld the plaintiff’s claims and ordered the applicant newspaper to publish a refutation. It also ordered the newspaper to pay 30,000 Azerbaijani manats (AZN) and the second applicant to pay AZN 2,000 in damages. The amounts awarded were to be given to a retirement home indicated by the plaintiff. Following a series of appeals, the lower courts’ judgments was upheld by the Supreme Court’s final decision of 22 July 2013.

The applicants complain under Article 10 of the Convention that the domestic courts’ judgments were in breach of their right to freedom of expression.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has there been an interference with the applicants’ freedom of expression, within the meaning of Article 10 § 1 of the Convention? If so, was that interference prescribed by law and necessary in terms of Article 10 § 2 in pursuit of a legitimate aim? Was the characterisation of the utterances published in the newspaper as statements of fact, rather than value judgments, justified? Was the amount of compensation for damages awarded in the present case in compliance with the requirement of proportionality?

2. The parties are requested to submit a detailed summary in English or French of the impugned articles, as well as translations into English or French of the specific extracts of the impugned articles which were found to be defamatory by the domestic courts.