HURBAIN v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT 250. The Court further notes that in examining whether that measure was proportionate, the Liège Court of Appeal took care to assess the implications of the measure for G., for the public who were entitled to have access to the information, and for the applicant. It concluded that the fact of acceding to G.’s request did not confer on each and every individual a subjective right to rewrite history, nor did it make it possible to “falsify history” or impose an “excessive burden of responsibility” on the applicant. 251. As regards the importance to be attached to the integrity of the archives (see paragraph 185 above), the Court notes that the Liège Court of Appeal took this factor into consideration in its reasoning. In reply to the applicant’s arguments concerning the duty to remember and the need to preserve a full and faithful record in the archives, the Court of Appeal made clear, indeed, that no request had been made for the article to be removed from the archives, but simply for the electronic version to be rendered anonymous. It also stressed that the paper archives remained intact and that the applicant could still ensure the integrity of the original digital version (see paragraph 29 above). As the Court has already noted (see paragraph 172 above), that reasoning may appear to be in contradiction with the operative provisions of the Court of Appeal’s judgment, which upheld the judgment of the Neufchâteau Court of First Instance whose anonymisation order extended to any database for which the applicant was responsible. Furthermore, the applicant’s representative stated at the Grand Chamber hearing that the material had been anonymised both in the online archive and in the “master” archive that was not accessible to the public. However, the fact remains that the Liège Court of Appeal considered that the anonymisation of the online archived version alone sufficed for it to conclude that its judgment of 25 September 2014 had been properly complied with. In any event, it is not the Court’s task to rule on this issue, since the applicant’s complaint before it concerns only the anonymisation of the online version of the article on the website of Le Soir (see paragraph 172 above). 252. The Court would note that in the present case the original, non-anonymised, version of the article is still available in print form and can be consulted by any person who is interested, thus fulfilling its inherent role as an archive record. 253. As to the Court of Appeal’s assessment of the technical feasibility for the applicant of anonymising the article on the website of Le Soir, the applicant – as the Chamber correctly observed – did not adduce any evidence capable of persuading the Court that this assessment was arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable. On the contrary, the article was anonymised shortly after the Liège Court of Appeal judgment had been served on the applicant (see paragraph 39 above), a fact that belies the applicant’s assertion before the domestic courts that such a measure was not technically feasible. 254. Lastly, as regards the possible chilling effect on freedom of the press stemming from the obligation for a publisher to anonymise an article that was 83

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