CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE BRATZA

1. I am in full agreement with the other members of the Chamber that the applicant ’ s rights under Article 10 of the Convention were violated in the present case and only wish to add a few remarks of my own on the question of the use of the criminal law to punish journalists in respect of personal insults.

2. In paragraph 47 of the judgment it is noted that the Court has previously held that the use of a criminal measure as a response to defamation cannot, as such, be considered disproportionate to the aim pursued. This is, of course correct, although it is also correct that, in holding an interference with freedom of expression to have been disproportionate, the Court has frequently placed emphasis on the fact that recourse could have been had to means other than criminal sanctions (see, for example, Lehideux and Isorni v. France , judgment of 23 September 1998, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-VII, §§ 51 and 57; Raichinov v. Bulgaria , no. 47579/99, § 50, 20 April 2006). The Chamber goes on in the same paragraph to hold that when a statement, whether qualified as defamatory or insulting by the domestic authorities, is made in the context of a public debate, the bringing of criminal proceedings against the maker of the statement “entails the risk that a prison sentence might be imposed” and that the imposition of a prison sentence for a press offence would be compatible with journalists ’ freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 onl y in exceptional circumstances.

3. In appearing to tie the lack of proportionality of the use of criminal sanctions for personal insult to a case where a journalist risks the imposition of a prison sentence, this statement of principle does not in my view go far enough. Irrespective of the severity of the penalty which is liable to be imposed on the journalist, the use of the criminal law, with the attendant risk of a criminal conviction and a criminal penalty, for criticising a politician or other public figure in a manner which can be regarded as personally insulting, is likely to deter a journalist from contributing to public discussion of issues affecting the life of the community and, more generally, to hamper the press in carrying out its important role as a public watchdog. In cases such as the present, involving criticism of a politician in the course of a public debate, it would in my view only be in the most exceptional circumstances that recourse to criminal proceedings against a journalist for alleged insult would be considered as a proportionate response, whether those proceedings originated in a bill of indictment lodged by a public prosecutor or, as in the present case, by the politician himself. The facts of the present case disclose no such exceptional circumstances.