Freedom of Press

• Author: International Law Group

Bladet Tromso A/S is a limited liability company that publishes a newspaper of about 9,000 in circulation in northern Norway. Its editor is Pol Stensaas, a Norwegian national. During March and April of 1988, the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries appointed a journalist named Lindberg as a seal-hunting inspector aboard the vessel M/S Harmoni. His June 30 report claimed several violations of the seal-hunting regulations, naming five crew members. Inter alia, the report alleged that some hunters had flayed seals alive. Relying on the Public Access to Official Documents Act of 1970, the Ministry decided not to publish the Lindberg report because it alleged statutory violations. Mr. Lindberg then sent his report to the Bladet Tromso. The latter published some of its allegations on July 15 and the rest of the report (with names of crew members deleted) on July 19 and 20.

In May 1991, seventeen Harmoni crew members sued Bladet Tromso and Mr. Stensaas (applicants) for defamation. The following March, the Norwegian District Court found that six published statements were defamatory and not shown to be true and declared the statements null and void. One statement related to the skinning of seals alive and another implied that the seal hunters had criminally threatened Lindberg. Four statements claimed that unnamed hunters had killed four harp seals, illegal acts in 1988. The Norwegian court ordered the payment of damages totaling Nkr 27,000 plus costs. It also denied applicant's request for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Applicants filed a case against Norway with the European Commission of Human Rights in December 1992. In September 1998, the Commission referred the matter to a seventeen-judge Grand Chamber of the new (as of November 1, 1998) European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The ECHR concludes, 13 to 4, that Norway has not shown that its interference was "necessary in a democratic society." Accordingly, there was a violation of Convention Article 10. Article 10(1) provides in part: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers." The parties did not dispute that the measures in question amounted to an "interference by a public authority" with the applicants' freedom of expression under Article 10(1).

Article 10(2) provides in relevant part that "the exercise of these...