CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;GRANDCHAMBER;ENG — 29 mars 2016

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SWITZERLAND   (Application no. 56925/08)                     JUDGMENT     STRASBOURG   29 March 2016       This judgment is final. In the case of Bédat v. Switzerland, The European Court of Human Rights, sitting as a Grand Chamber composed of:   Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska, President ,   Dean Spielmann,   Josep Casadevall,   Luis López Guerra,   Mark Villiger,   Elisabeth Steiner,   Khanlar Hajiyev,   Päivi Hirvelä,   Kristina Pardalos,   Ganna Yudkivska,   Vincent A. De Gaetano,   Julia Laffranque,   Helen Keller,   Paul Mahoney,   Aleš Pejchal,   Krzysztof Wojtyczek,   Egidijus Kūris, judges , and Lawrence Early, Jurisconsult , Having deliberated in private on 13 May 2015 and 20 January 2016, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last- mentioned date: PROCEDURE 1.     The case originated in an application (no. 56925/08) against the Swiss Confederation lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Swiss national, Mr Arnaud Bédat (“the applicant”), on 7   November 2008. Having originally been designated by the initials A.B., the applicant subsequently agreed to the disclosure of his name. 2.     The applicant was represented by Mr C. Poncet and Mr D. Hoffmann, lawyers practising in Geneva. The Swiss Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr F. Schürmann, of the Federal Office of Justice. 3.     The applicant alleged that the fine imposed on him in criminal proceedings for having published information covered by the secrecy of criminal investigations had violated his right to freedom of expression as secured by Article   10 of the Convention. 4.     The application was allocated to the Second Section of the Court (Rule   52   §   1 of the Rules of Court). On 1 July 2014 a Chamber of that Section, composed of Guido Raimondi, Işıl Karakaş, András Sajó, Nebojša Vučinić, Helen Keller, Paul Lemmens and Robert Spano, judges, and Abel Campos, Deputy Section Registrar, delivered its judgment (see A.B. v. Switzerland , no. 56925/08, 1 July 2014), in which it declared the application admissible and held, by four votes to three, that there had been a violation of Article 10 of the Convention. The joint dissenting opinion of Judges Karakaş, Keller and Lemmens was annexed to the judgment. On 29 September 2014 the Government requested that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber under Article 43 of the Convention. On 17   November 2014 a panel of the Grand Chamber accepted that request. 5.     The composition of the Grand Chamber was determined according to the provisions of Article 26 §§ 4 and 5 of the Convention and Rule 24. 6.     The applicant and the Government each filed further observations (Rule   59   §   1). 7.     A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 13 May 2015 (Rule 59 § 3).   There appeared before the Court: (a)     for the Government Mr   F. Schürmann , Head of the International Human Rights Protection Unit, Federal Office of Justice, Agent , Ms   D. Steiger Leuba , Mr   F. Galli , Mr   P. Rohner,   Advisers ; (b)     for the applicant Mr   C. Poncet , Mr   D. Hoffmann ,   Counsel .   The Court heard addresses by Mr Poncet, Mr Schürmann and Mr   Hoffmann and replies by Mr Poncet and Mr Schürmann to questions put by judges. THE FACTS I.     THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE 8.     The applicant is a journalist by profession. On 15 October 2003 he published an article in the weekly magazine L’Illustré entitled “ Drame du Grand-Pont à Lausanne – la version du chauffard – l’interrogatoire du conducteur fou ” (“Tragedy on the Lausanne Bridge – the reckless driver’s version – Questioning of the mad driver”). The article in question concerned a set of criminal proceedings against M.B., a motorist who had been remanded in custody after an incident on 8 July 2003 in which he had rammed his car into pedestrians, before throwing himself off the Lausanne Bridge (Grand-Pont). The incident, in which three people had died and eight others had been injured, had caused much emotion and controversy in Switzerland. The article began as follows. “Surname: B. First name: M. Born on 1 January 1966 in Tamanrasset (Algeria), son of B.B. and F.I., resident in Lausanne, holder of a category C licence, spouse of M.B. Profession: nursing assistant ... It is 8.15 p.m. on Tuesday 8 July 2003, in the austere premises of the Lausanne criminal investigation department. Six hours after his tragic headlong race along the Lausanne Bridge, resulting in three deaths and eight casualties, this reckless driver is alone for the first time, facing three investigators. Will he own up? In fact he doesn’t actually seem to realise what is happening, as if oblivious to the events and all the hubbub around him. The man who upset the whole of Lausanne this fine summer day is not very talkative. This Algerian citizen is withdrawn, introverted, inscrutable, indeed completely impenetrable. And yet the questions are flying from all sides. What were the reasons for this ‘accident’, one of the policemen rather clumsily writes, as if he had already formed his opinion. Four words in reply: ‘I do not know’.” 9.     The article continued with a summary of the questions put by the police officers and the investigating judge and M.B.’s replies. It also mentioned that M.B. had been “charged with premeditated murder [ assassinat ] and, in the alternative, with murder [ meurtre ], grievous bodily harm, endangering life and serious traffic offences”, and that he “appear[ed] to show no remorse”. The article was accompanied by several photographs of letters which M.B. had sent to the investigating judge. It ended with the following paragraph. “From his prison cell, M.B. now spends his time sending letters to the investigating judge ...: on being taken into custody he asked for his watch to be returned and requested a cup for his coffee, some dried fruit and chocolate. On 11 July, three days after the events, he even asked to be temporarily released for ‘a few days’. ‘I would like to phone my big brother in Algeria’, he subsequently begged. He finally announced on 11 August that he had come to a ‘final decision’: he dismissed his lawyer, Mr M.B., on grounds of ‘lack of trust’. Two days later, another letter: could the judge send him ‘the directory of the Bar Association of the Canton of Vaud’ to help him find a different defence lawyer? However, with all the recurrent lies and omissions, the mixture of naivety and arrogance, amnesia and sheer madness characterising all these statements, surely M.B. is doing everything in his power to make himself impossible to defend?” 10.     The article also included a brief summary entitled “He lost his marbles...” (“ Il a perdu la boule... ”), and statements from M.B.’s wife and from his doctor. 11.     It appears from the file that the applicant’s article was not the only piece to have been published on the Lausanne Bridge tragedy. The authorities responsible for the criminal investigation had themselves decided to inform the press of certain aspects of the investigation, which had led to the publication of an article in the Tribune de Genève on 14 August 2003. 12.     M.B. did not lodge a complaint against the applicant. However, criminal proceedings were brought against the applicant on the initiative of the public prosecutor for having published secret documents. It emerged from the investigation that one of the parties claiming damages in the proceedings against M.B. had photocopied the case file and lost one of the copies in a shopping centre. An unknown person had then brought the copy to the offices of the magazine which had published the impugned article. 13.     By an order of 23 June 2004, the investigating judge sentenced the applicant to one month’s imprisonment, suspended for one year. 14.     Following an application by the applicant to have the decision set aside, the Lausanne Police Court, by a judgment of 22 September 2005, replaced the prison sentence with a fine of 4,000 Swiss francs (CHF) (approximately 2,667 euros). At the hearing on 13 May 2015, in reply to a question from the Court, the applicant’s representative stated that the sum of CHF 4,000 had been advanced by his client’s employer and that his client was intending to refund it after the proceedings before the Court. He also confirmed that the amount set by the criminal court had taken account of the applicant’s previous record. 15.     The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law. His appeal was dismissed on 30 January 2006 by the Criminal Court of Cassation of the Canton of Vaud. 16.     The applicant lodged a public-law appeal and an appeal on grounds of nullity with the Federal Court, which on 29 April 2008 dismissed the appeals. Its decision was served on the applicant on 9 May 2008. The relevant passages from the decision follow. “7.     In short, the appellant submits that his conviction for a breach of Article 293 of the Criminal Code is contrary to federal law. He does not challenge the fact that the information which he published falls within the ambit of Article 293 of the Criminal Code. He does, on the other hand, submit, under an interpretation of Articles 293 and   32 of the Criminal Code in the light of the principles inferred from Article   10 ECHR by the European Court of Human Rights, that having received that information in good faith without obtaining it unlawfully, he had the duty as a professional journalist, under Article 32 of the Criminal Code, to publish it owing to what he sees as the obvious interest of the so-called ‘Lausanne Bridge’ case to the general public in French-speaking Switzerland. 7.1.     In accordance with Article 293 of the Criminal Code (Publication of secret official deliberations), anyone who, without being entitled to do so, makes public all or part of the documents, investigations or deliberations of an authority which are secret by law or by virtue of a decision taken by that authority, acting within its powers, will be punished by a fine (paragraph 1). Complicity in such acts is also punishable (see paragraph 2). The court may decide not to impose any penalties if the secret thus made public is of minor importance (see paragraph 3). According to case-law, this provision proceeds from a formal conception of secrecy. It is sufficient that the documents, deliberations or investigations in question have been declared secret by law or by virtue of a decision taken by the authority, or in other words that there has been an intention to keep them from becoming public, regardless of the type of classification selected (for example, top secret or confidential). On the other hand, strict secrecy presupposes that the holder of the specific information wishes to keep it secret, that there is a legitimate interest at stake, and that the information is known or accessible only to a select group of persons (see ATF [Judgments of the Swiss Federal Court] 126 IV 236, point 2a, p. 242, and 2c/aa, p.   244). This state of affairs was not altered by the entry into force of paragraph 3 of this Article on 1 April 1998 (RO [ Recueil officiel – Official Collection of Federal Statutes] 1998 852 856; FF [ Feuille fédérale ] 1996 IV 533). That rule concerns not secrets in the substantive sense but rather instances of futile, petty or excessive concealment (see ATF 126 IV 236 , point 2c/bb, p. 246). In order to exclude the application of paragraph 3, the court must therefore first of all examine the reasons for classifying the information as secret. It must, however, do so with restraint, without interfering with the discretionary power wielded by the authority which declared the information secret. It is sufficient that this declaration should nonetheless appear tenable vis-à-vis the content of the documents, investigations or deliberations in issue. Moreover, the journalists’ viewpoint on the interest in publishing the information is irrelevant (see ATF 126 IV 236 , point 2d, p. 246). In its Stoll v. Switzerland judgment of 10 December 2007, the European Court of Human Rights confirmed that this formal conception of secrecy was not contrary to Article 10 ECHR inasmuch as it did not prevent the Federal Court from determining whether the interference in issue was compatible with Article 10 ECHR, by assessing, in the context of its examination of Article 293, paragraph 3, of the Criminal Code, the justification for classifying a given piece of information as secret, on the one hand, and weighing up the interests at stake, on the other (see Stoll v. Switzerland [GC], no. 69698/01, §§ 138-39, ECHR 2007-V). 7.2.     In the present case the offence with which the appellant is charged concerned the publication of records of interviews and correspondence contained in the case file of a live criminal investigation. In pursuance of Article 184 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Canton of Vaud (CPP/VD), all investigations must remain secret until their final conclusion (see paragraph 1). The secrecy requirement relates to all the evidence uncovered by the investigation itself as well as all non-public decisions and investigative measures (see paragraph   2). The law also specifies that the following are bound by secrecy vis-à-vis anyone who does not have access to the case file: the judges and judicial staff (save in cases where disclosure would facilitate the investigation or is justified on public-order, administrative or judicial grounds; see Article 185 CPP/VD), and also the parties, their friends and relatives, their lawyers, the latter’s associates, consultants and staff, and any experts and witnesses. However, disclosure to friends or relatives by the parties or their lawyer is not punishable (see Article 185a CPP/VD). Lastly, the law provides for a range of exceptions. As an exception to Article 185, the cantonal investigating judge and, with the latter’s agreement, the judge responsible for the preliminary inquiry or senior police officers specially appointed by the cantonal government [ Conseil d’État ] (see Article 168, paragraph 3) may inform the press, radio or television about a pending investigation if so required by the public interest or considerations of fairness, particularly where public cooperation is required to shed light on an offence, in cases which are particularly serious or are already known to the general public, or where erroneous information must be corrected or the general public reassured (see Article 185b, paragraph 1, CPP/VD). The present case therefore concerns secrecy imposed by the law rather than by an official decision. 7.3.     As a general rule, the reason for the confidentiality of judicial investigations, which applies to most sets of cantonal criminal proceedings, is the need to protect the interests of the criminal proceedings by anticipating risks of collusion and the danger of evidence being tampered with or destroyed. Nevertheless, the interests of the accused must not be disregarded either, particularly vis-à-vis the presumption of innocence and, more broadly, the accused’s personal relations and interests (see Hauser, Schweri and Hartmann, Schweizerisches Strafprozessrecht , 6th ed., 2005, §   52, no. 6, p. 235; Gérard Piquerez, op. cit., § 134, no. 1066, p. 678; Gérard Piquerez, Procédure pénale suisse: manuel , 2nd ed., 2007, no. 849, pp. 559 et seq.), as well as the need to protect the opinion-forming process and the decision-making process within a State authority, as protected, precisely, by Article 293 of the Criminal Code (see ATF 126 IV 236 , point 2c/aa, p. 245). The European Court of Human Rights has already had occasion to deem such a purpose legitimate in itself. The aim is to maintain the authority and impartiality of the judiciary in accordance with the wording of Article 10 § 2 ECHR, which also mentions the protection of the reputation or rights of others (see Weber v. Switzerland , 22 May 1990, § 45, Series A no. 177, and Dupuis and Others v. France , no. 1914/02, § 32, 7 June 2007). Furthermore, in so far as the impugned publication concerned excerpts from records of interviews of the accused and reproduced certain letters sent by the latter to the investigating judge, this evidence can validly be classified secret, by prohibiting public access to it, as provided by the legislation of the Canton of Vaud. This is the inescapable conclusion as regards the records of interviews of the accused, as it would be inadmissible to allow such documents to be analysed in the public sphere, before the conclusion of the investigation, before the trial and out of context, in a manner liable to influence the decisions taken by the investigating judge and the trial court. It is also the only possible conclusion as regards the letters sent by the accused to the investigating judge, which focused on practical problems and criticisms of his lawyer (see Police Court judgment, point 4, p. 7). We might point out here that it appears from the impugned publication – which the cantonal authorities did not reproduce in full in their decisions, although they did refer to it and its content is not disputed – that the aforementioned practical problems concerned requests for temporary release and for access to personal effects (letters of 11 July 2003), for a change of cell (letter of 7   August 2003) and for authorisation to use the telephone (letter of 6 August 2003). Regardless of the guarantee of the presumption of innocence and the inferences concerning the detainee’s character which might be drawn during the criminal proceedings from such correspondence, the detainee, whose liberty is considerably restricted, even in respect of everyday acts relating to his private life, or indeed intimate sphere, can expect the authority restricting his liberty to protect him from public exposure of the practical details of his life as a remand prisoner and as a person facing charges (see Article 13 of the Constitution). It follows that in the instant case the information published by the appellant, in so far as it concerned the content of the records of his interviews and his correspondence with the investigating judge, cannot be described as a secret of minor importance for the purposes of Article 293, paragraph 3, of the Criminal Code. That being so, the impugned publication constituted the factual elements of the offence provided for in Article 293, paragraph 1, of the Criminal Code. 7.4.     Moreover, the information in question may be described as being secret in substantive terms because it was only accessible to a restricted number of persons (the investigating judge and the parties to the proceedings). Furthermore, the investigating authority was desirous to keep them secret, with not only a legitimate interest in doing so but an obligation under the Cantonal Code of Criminal Procedure, the justification for which was mentioned above (see point 7.3 above). 7.5.     Therefore, the only remaining point at issue is the existence of justification. 8.     In short, the appellant submits that he had the professional duty (under former Article 32 of the Criminal Code) as a journalist to publish the information in question because of what he describes as the obvious interest in the ‘Lausanne Bridge’ case for the population of French-speaking Switzerland. He considers that in the light of European case-law, the basic assumption should be that publication is justified in principle unless there is a pressing social need to maintain secrecy. From the standpoint of good faith, he submits that Article 32 should apply to journalists who are not responsible for the indiscretion committed by a third party and who receive information without committing any offence themselves other than the breach of secrecy stemming from the publication. Lastly, he contends that the mode of publication is not a relevant criterion. 8.1.     As regards the former point, the cantonal court found that while the accident of 8   July 2003, the circumstances of which were undoubtedly unusual, had triggered a great deal of public emotion, it had nevertheless, in legal terms, been simply a road accident with fatal consequences, and did not in itself entail any obvious public interest. It was not a case of collective trauma on the part of the Lausanne population, which would have justified reassuring the citizens and keeping them informed of the progress of the investigation (see judgment appealed against, point 2, p. 9). It is true that the ‘Lausanne Bridge case’ attracted extensive media coverage (see Police Court judgment, point 4, p. 8, to which the cantonal judgment refers (judgment appealed against, point B, p. 2)). However, this circumstance alone, alongside the unusual nature of the accident, is insufficient to substantiate a major public interest in publishing the confidential information in question. Unless it can be justified per se , the interest aroused among the public by media coverage of events cannot constitute a public interest in the disclosure of classified information, because that would mean that it would be sufficient to spark the public’s interest in a certain event in order to justify the subsequent publication of confidential information likely to maintain that interest. Furthermore, such a public interest is manifestly lacking as regards the letters that were published. As we have seen above (see point 7.3 above), these letters virtually exclusively concerned criticisms levelled by the accused against his lawyer and such practical problems as requests for temporary release, for access to personal effects, to change cells and to use the telephone. This type of information provides no relevant insights into the accident or the circumstances surrounding it. It relates to the private life, or indeed intimate sphere, of the person in custody, and it is difficult to see any interest which its publication could satisfy other than a certain kind of voyeurism. The same applies to the appellant’s requests to the investigating judge in relation to his choice of defence lawyer. Nor is it clear, as regards the records of his interviews, what political question or matter of public interest would have arisen or been worth debating in the public sphere, and the cantonal authorities explicitly ruled out the existence of any collective trauma which might have justified reassuring or informing the population. This finding of fact, which the appellant has not disputed in his public-law appeal, is binding on this court (see section 277 bis of the Federal Criminal Procedure Act). That being the case, the appellant fails to demonstrate the ‘obvious’ interest to the general public of the information published, and the cantonal court cannot be criticised for having concluded that at the very most, such an interest involved satisfying an unhealthy curiosity. 8.2.     The other two factors relied upon by the appellant concern his behaviour (good faith in access to information and mode of publication). 8.2.1.     It should first of all be noted that Article 293 of the Criminal Code punishes only the disclosure of information, irrespective of how the perpetrator obtained it. Moreover, even under Article 10 ECHR, the European Court does not attach decisive importance to this fact when considering whether applicants have fulfilled their duties and responsibilities. The determining fact is rather that they could not claim in good faith to be unaware that disclosure of the information was punishable by law (see Stoll , cited above, § 144, and Fressoz and Roire v. France [GC], no.   29183/95 , ECHR 1999 ‑ I). This point is well-established in the present case (see section B above). 8.2.2.     On the other hand, the mode of publication can play a more important role in the context of safeguarding freedom of expression. While the European Court of Human Rights reiterates that neither it, nor the domestic courts for that matter, should substitute their own views for those of the press as to what technique of reporting should be adopted by journalists, in weighing up the interests at stake it nevertheless takes account of the content, vocabulary and format of the publication, and of the headings and sub-headings (whether chosen by the journalist or the editors), and the accuracy of the information (see Stoll , cited above, §§ 146 et seq., especially 146, 147 and 149). In the instant case the cantonal court ruled that the tone adopted by the appellant in his article showed that his main concern was not, as he claims, to inform the general public about the State’s conduct of the criminal investigation. The headline of the article (‘Questioning of the mad driver’, ‘the reckless driver’s version’) already lacked objectivity. It suggested that the case had already been tried in the author’s view, in the sense that the fatalities on the Lausanne Bridge had been caused not by an ordinary motorist but by a ‘mad driver’, a man ‘oblivious to the events and all the hubbub around him’. The journalist concluded by wondering whether the driver was in fact doing his best to ‘make himself impossible to defend’. The manner in which he quoted the excerpts from the records of interviews and reproduced the letters sent by the defendant to the judge pointed to the motives of the author of the impugned article: he confined himself to sensationalism, his modus operandi being exclusively geared to satisfying the relatively unhealthy curiosity which anyone is liable to feel about this type of case. Readers of this highly biased publication would have formed an opinion and subjectively prejudged the future action to be taken by the courts regarding this case, without the least respect for the principle of presumption of innocence (see judgment appealed against, point 2, pp. 9 et seq.). The cantonal court concluded that this factor did not indicate that the public interest in receiving information prevailed. That court cannot be criticised on that account. 8.3.     The appellant also submitted that the records of interviews and the letters would in any case be mentioned in subsequent public hearings. He inferred from this that preserving the confidentiality of this information could therefore not be justified by any ‘pressing social need’. However, the mere possibility that the secrecy of criminal investigations might be lifted during a subsequent phase of proceedings, particularly during the trial, which is generally subject to the publicity principle, does not undermine the justification for keeping judicial investigations confidential, because the primary aim is to protect the opinion-forming and decision-making processes on the part not only of the trial court but also of the investigating authority, until the completion of this secret phase of proceedings. Moreover, far from being neutral and comprehensive, the publication in issue included comments and assessments which presented the information in issue in a particular light, without providing the opportunities for adversarial argument which are the very essence of proceedings in trial courts. 8.4.     Lastly, the appellant did not explicitly criticise the amount of the fine imposed on him. Nor did he challenge the refusal to grant him a probationary period after which the fine would be struck out (former Article 49, point 4, in conjunction with former Article 106, paragraph 3, of the Criminal Code) under Swiss law. From the angle of weighing up the interest in the interference, we might simply note that the fine imposed, the amount of which took into account a previous conviction dating back to 1998 (imposition of a CHF 2,000 fine, which could be struck out after a two-year probationary period, for coercion and defamation), does not exceed half the amount of the appellant’s monthly income at the material time (see Police Court judgment, point 1, p. 5), and there is nothing to suggest that his freelance status at the time of the first-instance judgment led to any significant drop in his earnings. It should also be pointed out that at CHF 4,000 the amount of the fine is below the statutory maximum set out in former Article 106, paragraph 1, of the Criminal Code (as in force until 31 December 2006), and that this maximum amount, set by the legislature more than thirty years ago, was not revised until the entry into force of the new general section of the Criminal Code, which now sets a figure of CHF   10,000 (see Article 106, paragraph 1, of the Criminal Code as in force since 1 January 2007). Furthermore, the sanction for the offence with which the appellant is charged did not prevent him from expressing his views, since it was imposed after the article had been published (see Stoll , cited above, § 156). That being the case, it is unclear, in view of the nature of the offence charged (the least serious in the classification set out in the Swiss Criminal Code), the amount of the fine and the time of its imposition, how the sanction imposed on the applicant could be regarded as a form of censorship. 8.5.     It follows from the foregoing that the appellant disclosed a secret within the meaning of Article 293, paragraph 1, of the Criminal Code and that he cannot rely on any justifying factor in his favour. The decision appealed against does not violate federal law as interpreted in the light of the Convention provisions relied upon by the appellant.” II.     RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE A.     Criminal Code of 21 December 1937 (version in force until 31   December 2006) 17.     The relevant provisions of the Criminal Code read as follows. Article 39 – Short periods of imprisonment [ arrêts ] “1.     Short periods of imprisonment [ arrêts ] correspond to the least severe custodial sentence available. Their duration is one day minimum and three months maximum ...” Article 293 – Publication of secret official deliberations “1.     Anyone who, without being entitled to do so, makes public all or part of the documents, investigations or deliberations of any authority which are secret by law or by virtue of a decision taken by such an authority acting within its powers shall be punished with imprisonment [ arrêts ] or a fine. 2.     Complicity in such acts shall be punishable. 3.     The court may decide not to impose any penalty if the secret concerned is of minor importance.” B.     Criminal Code of 21 December 1937 (version in force since 1 January 2007) 18.     The provisions of the Criminal Code read as follows. Article 293 – Publication of secret official deliberations “1.     Anyone who, without being entitled to do so, makes public all or part of the documents, investigations or deliberations of any authority which are secret by law or by virtue of a decision taken by such an authority acting within its powers shall be punished with a fine. 2.     Complicity in such acts shall be punishable. 3.     The court may decide not to impose any penalty if the secret concerned is of minor importance.” C.     Code of Criminal Procedure of the Canton of Vaud of 12   September 1967 19.     The relevant provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Canton of Vaud of 12 September 1967 read as follows. Article 166 – Secrecy “Preliminary police inquiries shall be secret. Articles 184 to 186 are applicable by analogy.” Article 184 – Secrecy of investigations “1.     All investigations must remain secret until their final conclusion. 2.     Secrecy shall concern all evidence uncovered by the investigation itself and all non-public investigative decisions and measures.” Article 185 – Persons bound to secrecy “Judges, prosecutors and judicial staff may not disclose items of evidence or information on the investigation to anyone who does not have access to the files, except to the extent that such disclosure would be useful to the investigation or is justified on public-order, administrative or judicial grounds.” Article 185a “1.     The parties, their friends and relatives, their lawyers, the latter’s associates, consultants and staff, and any experts and witnesses are required to observe the secrecy of the investigation vis-à-vis anyone who does not have access to the files. 2.     Disclosure of such information to friends or relatives by the parties or their lawyers shall not be punishable.” Article 185b “1.     As an exception to Article 185, the cantonal investigating judge and, with the latter’s agreement, the judge responsible for the preliminary inquiry or senior police officers specially appointed by the cantonal government [ Conseil d’État ] (see Article   168, paragraph 3) may inform the press, radio or television about a pending investigation if so required by the public interest or considerations of fairness, particularly in the following cases: (a)     where public cooperation is required to shed light on an offence; (b)     in cases which are particularly serious or are already known to the general public; (c)     where erroneous information must be corrected or the general public reassured. 2.     If a press conference is organised, counsel for the parties and the public prosecutor shall be invited to attend. 3.     If incorrect information has been disclosed to the press, radio or television, the parties may apply to the cantonal investigating judge to order rectification of such information, via the same media.” Article 186 – Sanctions “1.     Anyone who breaches the secrecy of investigations shall be punished with a fine of up to five thousand Swiss francs, unless this act is punishable under other provisions protecting secrecy. 2.     In very minor cases the person in question may be exempted from any penalty. ...” D.     Directives of the Swiss Press Council 20.     The Directives relating to the Declaration of the Duties and Rights of the Journalist issued by the Swiss Press Council which are relevant to the instant case read as follows. Directive 3.8 – Right to be heard against grave accusations “According to the principle of fairness and the general ethical requirement that both parties to a dispute must be heard ( audiatur et altera pars ), journalists are obliged to contact and hear, prior to publication, the views of those accused of serious offences. In so doing they must describe in detail the serious accusations which they are intending to publish. There is no obligation for the statements of the person accused of serious offences to be given the same weight in a report as the criticism of his or her actions. These statements must, however, be presented fairly when published in the same media report.” Directive 7.2 – Identification “Journalists must weigh carefully the various interests involved (the general public’s right to information, protection of the private sphere). Names or personally identifiable information is allowed: –     when the person involved appears publicly in relation to the issue or consents to publication in other ways; –     when the person is famous and the media report concerns the reason for his or her celebrity; –     when the person involved holds political office or a leading government or social position which is linked to the media report; –     when naming the person is necessary to avoid confusion that would be deleterious to other persons; –     when naming or identifying the person is also justified by an overriding public interest. Where the interest in protecting private life outweighs the public interest in identification, journalists shall publish neither names nor any other information that would identify the person to third parties who do not belong to his or her family, social or professional sphere, and who are therefore informed solely through the media.” III.     RELEVANT EUROPEAN INSTRUMENTS AND COMPARATIVE LAW MATERIAL A.     Recommendation Rec(2003)13 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to member states on the provision of information through the media in relation to criminal proceedings (adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 10 July 2003) 21.     The relevant passages of Recommendation Rec(2003)13 read as follows. “... Recalling that the media have the right to inform the public due to the right of the public to receive information, including information on matters of public concern, under Article 10 of the Convention, and that they have a professional duty to do so; Recalling that the rights to presumption of innocence, to a fair trial and to respect for private and family life under Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention constitute fundamental requirements which must be respected in any democratic society; Stressing the importance of media reporting in informing the public on criminal proceedings, making the deterrent function of criminal law visible as well as in ensuring public scrutiny of the functioning of the criminal justice system; Considering the possibly conflicting interests protected by Articles 6, 8 and 10 of the Convention and the necessity to balance these rights in view of the facts of every individual case, with due regard to the supervisory role of the European Court of Human Rights in ensuring the observance of the commitments under the Convention; ... Desirous to enhance an informed debate on the protection of the rights and interests at stake in the context of media reporting relating to criminal proceedings, and to foster good practice throughout Europe while ensuring access of the media to criminal proceedings; ... Recommends, while acknowledging the diversity of national legal systems concerning criminal procedure, that the governments of member states: 1.     take or reinforce, as the case may be, all measures which they consider necessary with a view to the implementation of the principles appended to this recommendation, within the limits of their respective constitutional provisions, 2.     disseminate widely this recommendation and its appended principles, where appropriate accompanied by a translation, and 3.     bring them in particular to the attention of judicial authorities and police services as well as to make them available to representative organisations of lawyers and media professionals. Appendix to Recommendation Rec(2003)13 – Principles concerning the provision of information through the media in relation to criminal proceedings Principle 1 – Information of the public via the media The public must be able to receive information about the activities of judicial authorities and police services through the media. Therefore, journalists must be able to freely report and comment on the functioning of the criminal justice system, subject only to the limitations provided for under the following principles. Principle 2 – Presumption of innocence Respect for the principle of the presumption of innocence is an integral part of the right to a fair trial. Accordingly, opinions and information relating to on-going criminal proceedings should only be communicated or disseminated through the media where this does not prejudice the presumption of innocence of the suspect or accused. ... Principle 6 – Regular information during criminal proceedings In the context of criminal proceedings of public interest or other criminal proceedings which have gained the particular attention of the public, judicial authorities and police services should inform the media about their essential acts, so long as this does not prejudice the secrecy of investigations and police inquiries or delay or impede the outcome of the proceedings. In cases of criminal proceedings which continue for a long period, this information should be provided regularly. ... Principle 8 – Protection of privacy in the context of on-going criminal proceedings The provision of information about suspects, accused or convicted persons or other parties to criminal proceedings should respect their right to protection of privacy in accordance with Article 8 of the Convention. Particular protection should be given to parties who are minors or other vulnerable persons, as well as to victims, to witnesses and to the families of suspects, accused and convicted. In all cases, particular consideration should be given to the harmful effect which the disclosure of information enabling their identification may have on the persons referred to in this Principle.” B.     Comparative law 22.     As regards the issue of penalties provided for in cases of breaches of the secrecy of criminal investigations, the Court has comparative law material at its disposal relating to thirty member States of the Council of Europe (Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Monaco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom). The disclosure of information covered by the secrecy of criminal investigations is penalised as such in all those States. 23.     In twenty-three of the thirty member States concerned, the penalties are general in scope, that is to say that they may be imposed on anyone who has disclosed information covered by the secrecy of criminal investigations. In the seven remaining States (Austria, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Romania, Spain and Ukraine), the penalties only target persons involved in the criminal investigation. Most of those twenty-three States have opted for criminal penalties, while in Estonia, the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic a breach of the secrecy of criminal investigations is only liable to administrative sanctions. THE LAW 24.     The applicant complained that his criminal conviction had resulted in a violation of his right to freedom of expression as provided in Article   10 of the Convention, which reads as follows: “1.     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. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2.     The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.” A.     The Chamber judgment 25.     In its judgment of 1 July 2014, the Chamber concluded that there had been a violation of Article 10. It first of all considered that the applicant’s conviction and the fine imposed on him for using and reproducing extracts from the investigation file in his article had amounted to interference with his right to freedom of expression and that such interference had been prescribed by law and had pursued the following legitimate aims: preventing “the disclosure of information received in confidence”, maintaining “the authority and impartiality of the judiciary” and protecting “the reputation [and] rights of others”. 26.     The Chamber then stated that the impugned article originated from a set of judicial proceedings initiated following an incident which had occurred under exceptional circumstances, which had immediately aroused interest among the public and which had prompted many media outlets to cover the case and its handling by the criminal justice system. In the impugned article the applicant looked at the character of the accused and attempted to understand his motives, while highlighting the manner in which the police and judicial authorities were dealing with him, a man who seemed to be suffering from psychiatric disorders. The Chamber therefore concluded that the article had addressed a matter of public interest. 27.     However, the Chamber noted that the applicant, an experienced journalist, must have known that the documents that had come into his possession were covered by the secrecy of judicial investigations. That being the case, he ought to have complied with the relevant legal provisions. 28.     In weighing up the competing interests at stake, the Chamber found that the Federal Court had merely noted that the premature disclosure both of the records of interviews and of the letters sent by the accused to the judge had necessarily infringed both the presumption of innocence and, more broadly, the accused’s right to a fair trial. However, the article in issue had not addressed the matter of the accused’s guilt and had been published more than two years before the first hearing at his trial for the alleged offences. Furthermore, the accused had