CEDH · CASELAW;DECISIONS;ADMISSIBILITYCOM;ENG — 3 mars 2026

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s2EF17D91 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center; font-size:2pt } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s5FFF0A77 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:1pt } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sA43C3626 { width:28.35pt; font-family:Arial; display:inline-block } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sD6845F38 { font-family:Arial; color:#0072bc } .s3AAE10DF { margin-top:14pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:justify; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s3CA22BA { font-family:Arial; text-transform:uppercase } .s9D48DD53 { margin-top:6pt; margin-left:21.25pt; margin-bottom:6pt; text-indent:7.1pt; text-align:justify; font-size:10pt } .s4200B979 { margin-top:14pt; margin-left:18pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-indent:-18pt; text-align:justify; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s2D9C6089 { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s84651E4E { margin-top:14pt; margin-left:14.2pt; margin-bottom:3pt; text-align:justify } .s69DCC830 { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sC986E16F { font-family:Arial; color:#ffffff } .sF993D337 { width:25.88pt; font-family:Arial; display:inline-block } .sBC93932 { width:138.76pt; font-family:Arial; display:inline-block } .s935FFEBF { width:7.54pt; font-family:Arial; display:inline-block } .sDCEB1D12 { width:138.09pt; font-family:Arial; display:inline-block } .fixListIndent { list-style-position: inside }     FOURTH SECTION DECISION Application no. 54352/20 T.K. against Georgia   The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 3   March   2026 as a Committee composed of:   Faris Vehabović , President ,   Lorraine Schembri Orland,   Sebastian Răduleţu , judges , and Giorgi Badashvili, Acting Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to: the application (no.   54352/20) against Georgia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 9   December 2020 by a Georgian national, T.K., who was born in 1970, and was represented by Mr   Y.L. Boychenko, a lawyer practising in Strasbourg; the decision to give notice of the application to the Georgian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr B. Dzamashvili of the Ministry of Justice; the decision not to disclose the applicant’s name; the parties’ observations; Having deliberated, decides as follows: SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE 1.     The present application concerns the scope of the State’s positive obligations under Article 8 of the Convention in relation to dissemination on social media, by a private individual, of personal information concerning the applicant’s private and/or family life. The applicant also relied on Article   13 of the Convention. 2 .     According to the material in the case file, since around 2012, the applicant, in her capacity as director of a surrogacy clinic and founder of a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dedicated to raising awareness about allegedly illegal surrogacy practices, began denouncing the activities of a private surrogacy agency headed by M.K. as involving various unlawful practices. The applicant submitted multiple requests to the prosecuting authorities and other bodies to investigate the matter. These events eventually led to personal animosity between the two individuals, thereby attracting considerable public attention. The applicant apparently published various pieces of information concerning M.K., which frequently resulted in altercations between the two on Facebook. Sometime in 2019 M.K. initiated judicial proceedings against the applicant (which, according to the information in the case file, appear to be ongoing), requesting, inter alia , that the applicant be barred from publishing social media posts about her. 3 .     On 14 June 2016 M.K. wrote the following comment on her own Facebook page, concerning the applicant: “[The applicant] also sued her husband in 2011, alleging attempted rape.” 4 .     On 19 June 2016 M.K. published the following post on her Facebook page, which received 66 “likes”: “As predicted, my arrival in Tbilisi and [the applicant’s] recourse to the police turned out to be the same thing. This time, the subject of the complaint is that somewhere in the comments section I mentioned the fact that she had sued her husband in 2011. ...” 5 .     The applicant, using her NGO’s Facebook account with approximately 9,000   followers, denounced M.K.’s sharing of information regarding her private life (without republishing M.K.’s original post). In particular, on 19   June   2016 the applicant made a lengthy post accusing M.K. of breaching her privacy. It received approximately 300 comments and 1,000 likes and was shared 400 times.   On 23 June 2016 the applicant shared the same information, gathering approximately 200 likes, 40   shares and 25 comments.   It appears that at the time M.K.’s original post (see paragraph   3 above) was still accessible on her page. On 15   February 2020 the applicant posted again regarding the alleged breach of privacy by M.K. The post received over 1,600 likes, 200 shares and numerous comments. 6 .     On 20   June 2016 the prosecution service opened, on the basis of a complaint lodged by the applicant on 18   June 2016, a criminal case into the alleged disclosure of information concerning private life (“the criminal case”). The authorities questioned the applicant, M.K. and M.K.’s mother. M.K. stated that the applicant had consistently spread false information about her. As for the information she had disseminated about the applicant (see paragraphs 3 and 4 above), she could not recall the exact source from which she had learned of the alleged facts concerning the applicant’s private life, but that she had known about them for a long time. The investigating authorities also examined the relevant social media accounts and the impugned posts. 7 .     The authorities, furthermore, obtained information about another criminal complaint lodged by the applicant in 2012 regarding the dissemination in the media of the family dispute referred to in M.K.’s post. Specifically, in 2012 the media had reported that a restraining order had been issued against the applicant’s spouse. At the time, the applicant had lodged a criminal complaint against the journalists, alleging that the broadcast had disclosed personal information by identifying both her spouse and herself, their names being visible on a judicial order shown in the media. On 6   February 2012 the authorities had discontinued that investigation, informing the applicant that her complaint had disclosed no elements of a criminal offence and advising her that the matter fell within the competence of the civil courts. 8 .     The applicant applied on five occasions to be granted procedural status of a victim in the context of the ongoing criminal case (see paragraph 6 above). The prosecuting authorities initially informed her that the investigation was still pending and that a decision would be taken at a later stage should sufficient prima facie evidence of a criminal offence emerge. Her most recent application, dated 22   June 2021, was dismissed by a prosecutor on the ground that no such prima facie evidence had been established. That decision was amenable to appeal to a superior prosecutor and, subsequently, to a court; however, the applicant did not avail herself of that opportunity. 9.     According to the information in the case file, the criminal case (see paragraph 6 above) remains ongoing. THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT 10.     Relying on Articles   8 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the State had failed to comply with its positive obligation to protect her private and/or family life against interference by M.K. 11.     The Government submitted, inter alia , that the matter concerned a trivial dispute between private parties to which Article 8 did not apply ratione materiae under the Convention; that the applicant had suffered no significant disadvantage, given that the information disseminated by M.K. had already been in the public domain; that the applicant had failed to exhaust effective remedies by instituting civil-law proceedings against the individual in question; or that the complaint was manifestly ill-founded on account of the applicant’s own role in amplifying the information disseminated by M.K. and that the Convention did not provide for a right to “private revenge.” 12.     The applicant replied, inter alia , that the civil remedy would not have been effective in her case, as the information disclosed by M.K. had not contained false facts and, in any event, the crux of her case had been to establish how M.K. had obtained the information and to have her “brought to justice” for disclosing personal information regarding the applicant which had negatively affected her psychological well-being. 13.     Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court need not address all the objections raised by the Government, as the application is in any event inadmissible on the following grounds. 14 .     Assuming the applicability of Article 8 of the Convention, the Court observes that the present case does not involve serious acts of violence by private parties, triggering the authorities’ duty to apply criminal-law mechanisms of effective investigation and prosecution (see B.V. and Others v.   Croatia (dec.), no.   38435/13, §§   151-54, 15   December 2015, with further references). Rather, it involves a long-standing dispute between private parties and the use of social media to disseminate information about the applicant, which had, at least in substance, been in the public domain for several years (see paragraphs   2-5 above). 15.     Therefore, the present case involves less serious acts between individuals which may violate psychological integrity, in respect of which the State’s obligation under Article   8 of the Convention to maintain and apply in practice an adequate legal framework affording protection does not always require that an efficient criminal-law provision covering the specific act be in place. The legal framework may also consist of civil-law remedies capable of affording sufficient protection (see Söderman v.   Sweden [GC], no.   5786/08, §   85, ECHR 2013, and B.V. and Others , cited above, § 154 in fine ). 16.     The Court takes note of the applicant’s insistence that the criminal investigation had yet to determine the manner in which the private individual in question had accessed the information regarding her private life. However, the Court cannot overlook that, in addition to the availability in the public domain of the information concerning the applicant’s family dispute (see paragraphs   6-7 above), already in 2012 the applicant was instructed by the relevant authorities that the adjudication of matters such as the present one fell within the domain of the civil courts (see Noveski and Others v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (dec.), nos. 25163/08 and 2 others, §§ 61 and 68, 13 September 2016). Yet, she chose not to pursue that remedy in the present case, considering that the criminal-law remedy was most appropriate to bring M.K. “to justice”. The Court reiterates, however, that the Convention does not guarantee an applicant a right to secure the prosecution and conviction of a third party or a right to “private revenge” (see Öneryıldız v.   Turkey [GC], no.   48939/99, §   147, ECHR 2004-XII). 17.     In this regard, even assuming that the authorities’ duty to apply criminal-law remedies was applicable in the present case, and bearing in mind the applicant’s own possible role in attracting public attention to her case (see paragraph   5 above), as well as the availability of the impugned information in the public domain for several years (see paragraphs   6-7 above), the Court observes that the prosecuting authorities carried out various investigative measures without delay and with no apparent omissions (see paragraphs   6-8 above). There is, therefore, nothing in the case file which discloses any shortcomings in the handling of the case by the domestic authorities. 18.     Accordingly, having regard to the authorities’ response to the applicants’ requests for intervention, the measures already adopted, and the availability of civil compensation proceedings, the Court is unable to find any appearance of deficiencies in the application of the relevant domestic framework in the circumstances of the present case (compare B.V. and Others , cited above, §§   148-64, and Noveski and Others , cited above, §§ 62 ‑ article70). 19.     In the light of the foregoing, the Court finds that the application is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention. For these reasons, the Court, unanimously, Declares the application inadmissible. Done in English and notified in writing on 26 March 2026.     Giorgi Badashvili   Faris Vehabović   Acting Deputy Registrar   President