HURBAIN v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT 218. The Court considers that the judicial nature of the information in question raises the issue, among others, of the nature and seriousness of the offence that was the subject of the original article. This criterion has previously been used by the Court in its case-law, and by other courts in Europe in examining similar cases (see M.L. and W.W. v. Germany, cited above, § 111; the CJEU judgment in GC and Others (C-136/17) – paragraph 84 above; and judgment no. 58/2018 of the Spanish Constitutional Court – paragraph 111 above). 219. In the present case the Court observes that the article in question presented a series of short news stories reporting on proven events in a succinct and objective manner, and that G. did not allege at any stage during the domestic proceedings that the information in question needed to be updated or rectified. However, in the Court’s view the facts reported on, although tragic, do not fall into the category of offences whose significance, owing to their seriousness, is unaltered by the passage of time. It should also be observed that the events giving rise to G.’s conviction were not the subject of any media coverage with the exception of the article in question, and that the case did not attract widespread publicity either at the time of the events reported on or when the archived version of the article was placed online (see, conversely, M.L. and W.W. v. Germany, cited above, § 105). This last factor was also taken into consideration by the Liège Court of Appeal in its assessment (see paragraph 29 above). (ii) The time elapsing since the events and since initial and online publication 220. In the Court’s view, the relevance of information is often closely linked to its topicality. Contrary to the applicant’s assertions (see paragraph 137 above), it considers that the passage of a significant length of time has an impact on the question whether a person should have a “right to be forgotten”. Like the Government, it notes that the passage of time since initial publication is one of the criteria highlighted by national courts in Europe in cases concerning the same issue (see paragraph 153 above; see also the judgment of the Spanish Constitutional Court – paragraph 108 above, and the judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court – paragraph 115 above). 221. In the present case the article in issue, which was published in 1994, was placed online in the archives of the newspaper Le Soir in 2008. The passage of time was a relevant factor in the Liège Court of Appeal’s assessment. That court noted that a significant length of time (sixteen years) had elapsed between the initial publication of the article and the first request for anonymisation; in all, some twenty years had passed by the time of delivery of its judgment (see paragraph 29 above). In these circumstances, the Court considers that G., who had been rehabilitated in 2006, had a legitimate interest, after all that time, in seeking to be allowed to reintegrate into society without being permanently reminded of his past. 75