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HURBAIN v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT as interpreted by the Belgian legal literature and case-law, constituted legislation that was sufficiently accessible, clear, precise and foreseeable for the purposes of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. 27. The Court of Appeal went on to dismiss the applicant’s argument that G.’s action had been brought against him erroneously since it should have been directed against the search engine operators. The court found as follows: “The indexing of the impugned article by search engines is only possible because the article is present in the database of Le Soir in non-anonymised form and without any noindex tag. As observed above, [G.] is entitled to bring his action against the news publisher with a view to having the article concerning him anonymised, resulting in the removal of the results obtained following a search based on his first name and surname.” 28. Regarding the “right to be forgotten”, which, in the applicant’s submission, was not applicable in the case at issue, the Court of Appeal stressed as follows: “Alongside the traditional aspect of the right to be forgotten linked to the fresh disclosure by the press of a person’s previous convictions, there exists a second aspect linked to the erasure of the digital data, and in particular the data available on the Internet. The present dispute, which concerns the digitisation of journalistic archives, raises issues in relation to the latter aspect, namely the right to be forgotten online. That right concerns the possibility for an individual to request the erasure of data concerning him or her, and more specifically data posted online, after a given period. The aim, therefore, is no longer to prevent or punish the disclosure of past events, but to obtain the removal of information available on the Internet ... This right to be forgotten online was recognised very recently by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU (Grand Chamber), 13 May 2014, Case C-131/12). In that judgment the CJEU held that the requirement regarding fresh disclosure of the information could be inferred from the effect of the search tool, which gave prominence to information that would not otherwise be visible online ... It is true that the CJEU judgment concerned a dispute between a Spanish citizen and the operator of a search engine (Google). Nevertheless, the principles established by that judgment can be transposed to the case at hand in so far as the publisher has also enabled the article in question to be given prominence via the search engine of the newspaper’s website, which is accessible free of charge. The effect is also multiplied significantly by the development of the ‘crawling’ software used by Google-type search engines ... The right to be forgotten online, like the traditional right to be forgotten, is not unlimited and has to be tightly regulated in so far as it is liable to come into conflict with the freedom of expression of the press. The case-law, and in particular that of the Court of Justice of the European Union, has defined a number of criteria and conditions designed to guide the courts in assessing whether a proper balance had been struck between the fundamental rights enshrined, inter alia, in Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (see, in particular, [ECHR], 7 February 2012, Von Hannover v. Germany, and CJEU (GC), 13 May 2014, Google v. Mario Costeja González; see also Namur Court of First 9

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Hurbain v. Belgium

Case Law

Country

Belgium

Country Location

Latitude: 50.855421148205785

Longitude: 4.557127118111282

Country Location (linked Case Law): Belgium

Decision Date: Jul 4, 2023

Case Status: Closed

Case Outcome (Procedural)

Inadmissible
Motion Denied

Case Outcome (Disposition)

Injunction, Order, or Motion Denied/Vacated

Keywords

Access to Information
Digital Rights
Freedom of Press
Media/Press
Privacy, Data Protection and Retention
Right to be Forgotten

Judicial Body: European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)

Court Name: The Grand Chamber, European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)

Case Number: Application no. 57292/16

Case Summary: The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in a majority judgment, held that an order to anonymise an article in a newspaper’s electronic archive (which referred to a person’s involvement in a fatal road traffic accident for which they were subsequently convicted) did not breach the applicant publisher’s right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The applicant, Patrick Hurbain’s newspaper Le Soir published an article reporting on a series of fatal car accidents which had occurred in a short period of time. It mentioned the full name of one of the drivers involved, “G” who successfully sued the applicant and received an order in their favour. The ECtHR upheld the decision of the domestic courts and emphasized that a person who is not a public figure may acquire notoriety in the context of a criminal process/trial but that may decline with the passage of time, with the effect that they may be able to rely on the right to be forgotten in order to go back to being someone who is unknown to the public. In reaching such conclusion, the court tailored a seven-criteria test which is to be applied in right to be forgotten cases.

Case Significance: Decision (including concurring or dissenting opinions) establishes influential or persuasive precedent outside its jurisdiction.

In this judgment the Grand Chamber has provided important clarification as to the approach to be taken to “right to be forgotten” requests directed towards content providers and, in particular, towards media archives. The judgment provides clear criteria for deciding whether or not a right to be forgotten request should be accepted by the operators of a media archive. Those criteria have been specifically tailored to cases in which “right to be forgotten” requests are made against content providers rather than search engines.

Attention is drawn to the following points in relation to “right to be forgotten” clams:

The right is not likely to be available in respect of reports of the most serious criminal offences, or ones of historical or statistical significance.

The longer the time that has passed the stronger the claim will be.

Current contribution to a debate of public interest is not decisive – historical and scientific value is also important.

There must be a properly duly substantiated claim of serious harm to private life – rehabilitation is important but not enough on its own.

The measure which is least restrictive of press freedom must be used.

The majority were not persuaded that by the dissenters view that the Court should recognise an Article 10 “right to remember” (see in particular the concurring opinion of Judge Krenc, at [23]).

The Grand Chamber’s approach is very similar to that which is undertaken in a right to erasure case brought under Article 17 of the UK GDPR. Article 17(3) provides for erasure requests to be refused where the processing is necessary for exercising the right to freedom of expression and information and for archiving; that demands a balancing exercise. The European Data Protection Board’s Guidelines 5/2019 on the criteria of the Right to be Forgotten in the search engines cases under the GDPR (part 1) [pdf] and the CJEU have laid down criteria for this balancing exercise (e.g., C-136/17 GC v CNIL [77]). The Strasbourg Court and the CJEU have embraced each other’s jurisprudence in this context and it is likely that the outcome of the balancing exercise would be the same under both regimes.

Decisions of the Court of Human Rights are persuasive but not binding in domestic law but Articles 8 and 10 of the Convention are the “very content” of the tort of misuse of private information and a definitive decision on the balancing of these rights is one which the English courts are likely to follow.

Although the decision has attracted criticism from free speech campaigners such as Media Defence and Article 19 the Grand Chamber struck a careful balance between free speech and privacy rights. As noted above, the Grand Chamber considered that the obligation for a publisher to anonymise an article that had been published initially in a lawful manner fell within the “duties and responsibilities” of the press which are expressly referred to in Article 10(2). The decision confirms that media organisations need not proactively monitor their archives on an ongoing basis or go back and remove names from historical articles. As is the case under data protection law, they need only assess the competing rights and interests in response to a right to be forgotten request.

The judgment suggests that right to be forgotten requests/claims may be more likely to be regarded as proportionate (and thus succeed) where they are narrowly targeted to focus on getting an article anonymised rather than removed entirely. The case makes it clear that a person seeking to invoke the “right to be forgotten” in respect of media archives faces a substantial hurdle. This is likely to be difficult to overcome in the case of a public figure or someone involved in an event of historical significance.

Related Caselaw (self)

Source URL: Global Freedom of Expression

Collection

CIPIT
Columbia

Date Updated: Jan 30, 2024

Primary Documents

CASE-OF-HURBAIN-v.-BELGIUM-1.pdf
English
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CYRILLA: Global Digital Rights Law

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Hurbain v. Belgium

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