HURBAIN v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINIONS DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE RANZONI JOINED BY JUDGES KŪRIS, GROZEV, EICKE AND SCHEMBRI ORLAND (Translation) I. Introduction 1. The present case concerns a civil judgment against the applicant, the publisher of the Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir, ordering him to anonymise, on grounds of the “right to be forgotten”, the electronic version of an article contained in the online archives which mentioned the full name of G., the driver responsible for a fatal road-traffic accident in 1994. Relying on Article 10 of the Convention, the applicant alleged that the order for him to anonymise the archived version of the article on the newspaper’s website constituted a violation of freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom to impart information. 2. Thus, the case raises the novel issue of the application of the “right to be forgotten” by means of direct intervention affecting the integrity of the information contained in an article in the digital press archives whose initial publication was lawful and which was archived for journalistic purposes. The main issue at stake is to determine the methodological approach to be applied in cases of this kind and the relevant criteria to be taken into consideration. 3. In that connection I am unable to subscribe to the approach taken by the majority of the Grand Chamber, who, to my mind, view the present case through the wrong prism and deal with it using a set of instruments devised in different circumstances and ill-suited to the requirements of the modern communications era and the challenges posed by digital press archives and their accessibility. The majority opted to consider the case from an extremely narrow perspective, confined to the particular circumstances of the case and on the basis of an unduly benevolent interpretation of the domestic judgments. Accordingly, they did not conduct a thorough examination of the novel issues arising in this context and of the applicable principles, but instead took a minimalist approach that does not seem fitting for a Grand Chamber case such as this. Moreover, the approach taken by the majority risks considerably weakening freedom of the press. 4. In the following paragraphs I will not address in detail the shortcomings in the majority’s reasoning and the criteria which they apply. Instead, I would like to outline briefly the way in which the Court, in my view, should have examined the case, which would have led to a finding of a violation of Article 10 of the Convention. That is the outcome for which I voted, in disagreement with the majority. 95