PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE MATSCHER

To my regret , I cannot subscribe to the reasoning or to the decision of the majority of the Chamber on two points.

The merits

The applicants were not able to adduce the slightest evidence that Mrs Rosenkranz ' s behaviour or statements justified her description as a “closet Nazi” or that she had secretly supported Nazi ideas.

The mere fact that Mrs Rosenkranz is married to a (locally) known right-wing politician and had refused to dissociate herself in public from her husband ' s ideas does not show that she identified herself with those ideas. People cannot be held liable for the ideas of a member of their family (see, mutatis mutandis , De Haes and Gijsels v. Belgium , judgment of 24 February 1997, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-I, p. 236, § 45: “It is unacceptable that someone should be exposed to opprobrium because of matters concerning a member of his family.”).

Under these circumstances, the allegation that Mrs Rosenkranz had an ambiguous relation to National Socialism constituted a very serious reproach in Austria, which justified a criminal conviction and, therefore, an interference under Article 10 § 2 of the Convention (see Wabl v. Austria , no. 24773/94, § 41, 21 March 2000).

Moreover, the applicants ' argument that the term “closet Nazi” ha d to be understood in the special meaning given to it by Mr Steger is not convincing. Mr Steger, a former leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) c oined the expression in the early 1980s. The impugned article was published in 1995. At that time virtually no one remembered the special sense given to the term “closet Nazi” by Mr Steger about ten years earlier , and the vast majority of the population understood it in its ordinary meaning, as a person supporting Nazi ideas and perhaps acting secret ly for the Nazi movement.

The decision on the alleged non-pecuniary damage

It is not realistic to consider that the first applicant ' s criminal conviction caused him, as a journalist, particular damage; rather, the contrary is more plausible. The reference to Nikula v. Finland (no. 31611/96, § 65, ECHR 2 002 -II ) is irrelevant because the situation in that case was very different.

It is for this reason that in comparable Austrian cases (such as Oberschlick v. Austria , judgment of 23 May 1991, Series A no. 204, p. 29, § 69 , and Schwabe v. Austria , judgment of 28 August 1992, Series A no. 242-B, p. 35, § 39) no award was made for non-pecuniary damage. I see no reason to depart from that jurisprudence.