03/02/2020 FURST-PFEIFER v. AUSTRIA - 33677/10 (No violation of Article 8 - Right to respect for private and family life (Article 8-1 : Respect for priva… be entrusted to someone who has had mental-health problems in the past, anonymising the person concerned would not have impaired a “general” debate. 24. No less telling is the fact that the article appeared not only on the Internet but also in the weekly newspaper “which was sent to every household of the district free” (see paragraph 7). The Mölding district, where the applicant lives (see paragraph 5) and practices her profession (as her own webpage indicates), has twenty thousand inhabitants. This does not seem a very large market for someone who is probably not the only psychologist in the area. 25. The Chamber is satisfied that “[b]eside a catchy sub-headline only facts and comments by third persons, clearly distinguished by quotation marks, were included” in the article and that “[t]hese facts were set out without any negative comment by the author” (see paragraph 44). We respectfully disagree. First of all, the “author” of the article (at least in its Internet version) was not indicated. In this respect it was an editorial. Further, direct negative comments (such as “offensive and abusive verbal attacks”) were not required in order to do damage to the applicant’s reputation, because all of the information provided in the article about the applicant was negative. Nothing positive was written about her. The “catchy” headline invited the reader to a totality of information which depicted the applicant exclusively in negative terms. Had the “author” of the publication been guided by a more humane aim than stigmatising the applicant, an objective article would have included at least faint consideration of the possibility that the mental condition of a court-certified expert whose professional performance and integrity had not been “debated upon for more than a decade” may be not the same as it was fifteen years previously, when she was going through a difficult period in her life. Equally, the argument that the facts “were set out without any negative comment by the author” proves nothing: such comments were indeed there, uttered not “by the author” but by the other persons who had been asked to comment on the matter. Thus, the “member of the Green Party” rhetorically ratiocinated (this comment too has been omitted in paragraph 8): “In what country do we live, where people with a clearly dubious personality structure can decide the fate of thousands of parents and children” (In welchem Land leben wir, wenn Menschen mit einem offenbar zweifelhaftem Persönlichkeitsbild über die Schicksale von zigtausend Eltern und Kinder entscheiden können). It makes no difference that this comment was not provided “by the author”. 26. In the judgment, some factual information is nipped in the bud, after it has served to create a context unfavourable to the applicant. Here are few examples of such half-truths. It is mentioned that the “member of the Green Party” had filed a criminal complaint against the applicant (see paragraph 9). What was the outcome of this initiative? It appears that it was nil, as both the applicant’s own webpage and that of the professional association of court experts continue to indicate her as a court-certified expert. It is mentioned that “proceedings were initiated at the [regional court] to clarify whether the applicant was still fit to work as a court-appointed expert”, and that her “mental status was also set to be examined” (see paragraph 10). What were the results of these procedures? Again, nil. And what about the “serious” public debate on the “general and public interest” to which the article had “contributed”? Has it brought about any tangible results? Have any changes been introduced in the courts’ certification procedure for psychological experts? Do candidates for certification now have to “confess” their medical history (which was not the case when the applicant was certified), and if so, how much of it? The Government have not provided information on this matter. This proves, albeit indirectly, that the positive value of the media’s “contribution” to the alleged “serious debate” was zilch. 27. In the face of these factual circumstances, the impugned article has to be seen not as a “contribution to a debate of general and public interest” but as a gratuitous attack on the reputation of the applicant. 28. Even so, this would not necessarily have amounted to a violation of the applicant’s rights under Article 8 had there been a pressing social need to raise publicly the issue of her professional skills. But the absence of any “ongoing public debate” regarding the applicant, as well as of any complaint against www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2016/431.html 20/23