Published on 3 July 2023

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 54820/19 György SZILVÁSY against Hungary lodged on 11 October 2019 communicated on 13 June 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the use of the image of the applicant – a former government minister – by a news portal in 2015 despite his lack of consent to being photographed during a criminal trial which he had attended as a defendant in 2011. He unsuccessfully initiated court proceedings alleging a violation of his personality rights. Even though his claim was granted on appeal, this decision was quashed by the Constitutional Court on 30 October 2018. It found that the subject matter of the article was of public interest, to which the impugned photograph was closely linked and the illustration did not show the applicant in a humiliating manner. The Constitutional Court considered that in 2011 – under the applicable law at the time – the applicant’s consent had been a prerequisite for the lawful taking of his photograph in a court room and its subsequent publication. However, as a consequence of the change in the underlying legislation, different rules applied to the repeated publication of his photo in 2015. In the resumed proceedings the second instance court, following the Constitutional Court’s instructions, concluded that the publication of his photograph constituted a proportionate interference with the applicant’s private life and thus it rejected his claim on 12 April 2019.

The applicant complains under Article 8 of the Convention that his photograph was taken and published without his consent in violation of domestic law and, in any case, its publication constituted a disproportionate interference with his private life.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention?

2. In particular, was the balancing exercise undertaken by the domestic courts in conformity with the criteria laid down in the Court’s case-law (see, for example, Von Hannover v. Germany (no. 2) [GC], nos. 40660/08 and 60641/08, 7 February 2012), inter alia , regarding as to the circumstances in which the photograph was taken (including lawfulness under domestic law)?