WĘGRZYNOWSKI AND SMOLCZEWSKI v. POLAND JUDGMENT 9 39. It follows that the application, in so far as it relates to the first applicant, has been introduced out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention. 4. Exhaustion of domestic remedies as regards the second applicant, Mr Smolczewski 40. The Government submitted that the second applicant had not exhausted all available domestic remedies. He could have applied to the domestic courts seeking an interim injunction (zabezpieczenie powództwa) under Article 730 § 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It had been open to him to request, for example, that a temporary footnote or a comment informing any reader about the proceedings be added to the article on the website. The Government referred to the Court’s findings to the effect that such a temporary notice would “normally remove any sting from the material” (relying upon Times Newspapers Ltd v. the United Kingdom (nos. 1 and 2), nos. 3002/03 and 23676/03, § 47, ECHR 2009). 41. The Government further submitted that the second applicant should have had recourse to the rectification procedure (sprostowanie) provided for by Article 31 of the Press Act (see paragraph 23 above). This provision was designed to offer a person negatively affected by a press article a possibility of requesting the publisher to publish, free of charge and in a proper place and form, his or her statement addressing and rectifying the content of the original article. However, the second applicant had failed to have recourse to this remedy. 42. The second applicant disagreed with the Government’s submissions. 43. Article 35 § 1 of the Convention requires that the only remedies to be exhausted are those that are available and sufficient to afford redress in respect of the breaches alleged. The purpose of Article 35 § 1 is to afford the Contracting States the opportunity of preventing or putting right the violations alleged against them before those allegations are submitted to the Court (see, inter alia, Selmouni v. France [GC], no. 25803/94, § 74, ECHR 1999-V). 44. The existence of the remedies in question must be sufficiently certain not only in theory but in practice, failing which they will lack the requisite accessibility and effectiveness (see, among other authorities, Orchowski v. Poland, no. 17885/04, § 105, 22 October 2009, and Norbert Sikorski v. Poland, no. 17599/05, § 108, 22 October 2009). The development and availability of a remedy said to exist, including its scope and application, must be clearly set out and confirmed or complemented by practice or case-law (Mikolajová v. Slovakia, no. 4479/03, § 34, 18 January 2011). A Government’s arguments clearly carry more weight if relevant examples from national case-law are provided (see Sakhnovskiy v. Russia [GC], §§ 43-44, 2 November 2010, and Toziczka v. Poland, no. 29995/08, § 26, 24 July 2012).

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