PARTLY CONCURRING AND PARTLY DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE YÃœKSEL

1 . As regards the applicant ’ s complaint under Article 10 of the Convention, I concur with the finding that, in the particular circumstances of the present case, there has been a violation of that Article, but I cannot subscribe to the reasoning set out in the judgment.

2 . The case concerns two defamation actions brought against the leader of the main opposition party, who had made two political speeches during meetings of the parliamentary group inside the parliamentary precincts. The crux of the matter is whether the domestic courts made the distinction between “facts” and “value judgments” in their reasoning, when carrying out a balancing exercise as required by the Court ’ s case-law in situations of conflict between the applicant ’ s rights under Article 10, on the one hand, and the Article 8 rights of another person, in this case the Prime Minister, on the other. The shortcoming in the approach taken by the domestic courts lies at the root of the problem.

3 . As indicated in paragraph 58 of the judgment, where allegations are made about the conduct of a third party, it may sometimes be difficult to distinguish between assertions of fact and value judgments. However, according to the Court ’ s established case-law, a distinction has to be drawn between statements of fact and value judgments. While the existence of facts can be demonstrated, the truth of value judgments is not susceptible of proof. The requirement to prove the truth of a value judgment is impossible to fulfil and infringes freedom of opinion itself, which is a fundamental part of the right secured by Article 10 (see Lingens v. Austria , 8 July 1986, § 46, Series A no. 103; McVicar v. the United Kingdom , no. 46311/99, § 83, ECHR 2002 ‑ III; Gorelishvili v. Georgia , no. 12979/04, § 38, 5 June 2007; Grinberg v. Russia , no. 23472/03, §§ 29-30, 21 July 2005; and Fedchenko v. Russia , no. 33333/04, § 37, 11 February 2010). The Court has thus raised the lack of distinction between facts and value judgments in several cases (see OOO Izdatelskiy Tsentr Kvartirnyy Ryad v. Russia, no. 39748/05, § 44, 25 April 2017; Reichman v. France , no. 50147/11, § 72, 12 July 2016; Paturel v. France , no. 54968/00, § 35, 22 December 2005; and De Carolis and France Télévisions v. France , no. 29313/10, § 54, 21 January 2016).

4 . I must also recall that the characterisation of remarks as statements of fact or value judgments falls primarily within the ambit of the margin of appreciation afforded to national authorities, in particular the domestic courts (see Prager and Oberschlick v. Austria , 26 April 1995, § 36, Series A no. 313). In the present case, even though I agree with most of the considerations of the Constitutional Court ’ s judgment, I would nevertheless point out that the domestic decisions appear to have referred particularly to the style in which the remarks were conveyed and failed to adduce sufficient reasoning in taking into consideration the distinction between facts and value judgments. In this connection, for example, I have doubts that the applicant ’ s remarks, which related to court cases concerning allegations of embezzlement (see in particular paragraph 4), can easily be regarded as value judgments. In my view, certain remarks by the applicant could be classified as statements of fact and would require the applicant to demonstrate their existence. Having said that, I do not see any discussion on this subject in the judgments of the domestic courts, including that of the Constitutional Court.

5 . Considering the national context, I agree with the Constitutional Court that the language and expressions used in the two speeches can be recognised as having a humiliating nature, and regarded as a series of insults and not criticism. However, I should point out that the standard applied by the Court ’ s case-law is higher than that which was applied in the present case by the national courts, when it comes to political discourse between two political figures. Political expression enjoys a high level of protection under Article 10 of the Convention, since very strong reasons are required for justifying restrictions on political speech (see Morice v. France [GC], no. 29369/10 , § 125, ECHR 2015) and there is little scope under Article 10 § 2 of the Convention for restrictions on speech which, like the speeches in the instant case, is political in nature (see Rashkin v. Russia , no. 69575/10, § 18, 7 July 2020, not yet final).

6 . I must stress that I fully share the considerations of the Constitutional Court, which has emphasised the duties and responsibilities of politicians. In my opinion, politicians must avoid using coarse, demeaning, humiliating and contemptuous language about their political opponents. If the domestic courts ’ decisions and the present judgment had entered into a discussion and assessed the substance of the applicant ’ s statements after applying the distinction between facts and value judgments in their reasoning, I doubt that my conclusion would have been the same as to whether the boundaries of the protection afforded by Article 10 were exceeded.

7 . I believe that the Court should have found only a procedural violation of Article 10. In such a situation and in the light of the foregoing, I consider that the finding of a procedural violation would constitute in itself sufficient just satisfaction for the damage claimed by the applicant and therefore I respectfully disag ree with the finding on Article 41 concerning just satisfaction.