CEDH · PRESS;CHAMBERJUDGMENTS;ENG — 4 octobre 2007

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   653 4.10.2007   Press release issued by the Registrar   CHAMBER JUDGMENT VEREIN GEGEN TIERFABRIKEN SCHWEIZ (VgT) v. SWITZERLAND   The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Verein gegen Tierfabriken Schweiz (VgT) v. Switzerland (application no.   32772/02).   The Court held by five votes to two that there had been a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.   (The judgment is available only in French.)   1.     Principal facts   The applicant, Verein gegen Tierfabriken Schweiz (VgT), is a Swiss-registered animal-protection association which, among other things, campaigns against experiments on animals and battery farming.   In response to various advertisements produced by the meat industry, it made a television commercial which showed a noisy hall with pigs in small pens and compared the conditions to those in concentration camps. The commercial ended with the words: “Eat less meat, for the sake of your health, the animals and the environment”.   Permission to broadcast the commercial was refused on 24 January 1994 by the Commercial Television Company ( AG für das Werbefernsehen – now Publisuisse S.A.) and at final instance by the Federal Court, which dismissed an administrative-law appeal by the applicant association on 20 August 1997.   The applicant association lodged an initial application (no. 24699/94) with the European Court of Human Rights, which in a judgment of 28 June 2001 held that the Swiss authorities’ refusal to broadcast the commercial in question had breached the association’s freedom of expression. It found a violation of Article 10 and awarded the applicant association 20,000 Swiss francs (approximately 12,000 euros) for costs and expenses.   On 1 December 2001, on the basis of the Court’s judgment, the applicant association applied to the Federal Court for revision of the final domestic judgment prohibiting the commercial from being broadcast. In their respective observations of 10 January and 15 February 2002, which were duly communicated to the applicant association, the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication and the Swiss Radio and Television Company submitted that the request for revision should be refused.   In a judgment of 29 April 2002 the Federal Court refused the request for revision, finding that the applicant association had not provided a sufficient explanation of the nature of “the amendment of the judgment and the redress being sought” and had been unable to show how revision of the judgment was the only means of affording redress. It added that the association had not sufficiently shown that it still had an interest in broadcasting the commercial, which now appeared out of date, almost eight years after it had initially intended to do so.   The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is responsible for supervising execution of the Court’s judgments, had not been informed of the Federal Court’s refusal of the request for revision and accordingly ended its examination of the applicant association’s initial application (no. 24699/94) by adopting a resolution in July 2003. However, the resolution noted the possibility of lodging a request for revision with the Federal Court.   In July 2002 the applicant association lodged the application in the present case with the Court, contesting the refusal of its request for revision. The Court pointed out, in particular, that the grounds given by the Federal Court as to the applicant association’s interest in broadcasting the television commercial were capable of giving rise to a fresh interference with its freedom of expression.   It therefore held that the association’s complaint under Article 10 concerning the Federal Court’s refusal to revise its judgment of 20 August 1997 should be viewed as raising a new issue not determined by the judgment of 28 June 2001.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 25 July 2002.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Snejana Botoucharova (Bulgarian), President , Luzius Wildhaber (Swiss), Karel Jungwiert (Czech), Volodymyr Butkevych (Ukrainian), Margarita Tsatsa-Nikolovska (citizen of “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”), Javier Borrego Borrego (Spanish), Renate Jaeger (German), judges , and also Claudia Westerdiek , Section Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [2]   Complaints   The applicant association alleged that the continued prohibition on broadcasting the television commercial in question, after the Court had found a violation of its freedom of expression, constituted interference in breach of its freedom of expression under Article 10.   Decision of the Court   Article 10   The Court noted that the Federal Court had refused the applicant association’s request for revision on the ground that the association had not provided a sufficient explanation of the nature of “the amendment of the judgment and the redress being sought”. That approach appeared overly formalistic, seeing that it followed from the circumstances of the case as a whole that the association’s request concerned the broadcasting of the commercial in question, which had been prohibited by the Federal Court itself on 20 August 1997.   The Court further noted that the Federal Court had held that the applicant association had not sufficiently shown that it still had an interest in broadcasting the commercial in its original version. In doing so, it had effectively taken the place of the association in deciding whether there was still any purpose in broadcasting the commercial and had itself failed to explain how the public debate on battery farming had changed or become less topical since 1994.   The Court accordingly considered that the reasons given by the Swiss Federal Court, having regard to the case as a whole and to the interest of a democratic society in ensuring and maintaining freedom of expression in matters of indisputable public interest, were not “relevant and sufficient” to justify the interference in issue. There had therefore been a violation of Article 10.   Judges Jaeger and Borrego Borrego expressed a dissenting opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.     ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Tracey Turner-Tretz (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 35 30) Paramy Chanthalangsy (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 91)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. [1] Under Article 43 of the Convention, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.