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
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