OOO MEMO v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINION JOINT CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGES RAVARANI, SERGHIDES AND LOBOV 1. We respectfully disagree with the majority’s view that the violation of Article 10 in this case was due to the fact that the impugned interference with the applicant company’s right to freedom of expression lacked a legitimate aim under paragraph 2 of Article 10 of the Convention. In our view, Article 10 was violated on another ground, relating to the domestic courts’ failure to demonstrate that the interference was necessary in a democratic society, in line with the Court’s well-established case-law. The existence of a legitimate aim for the interference 2. The majority decided to review the Court’s approach to the entitlement of public entities to “the protection of the reputation and rights of others”, provided for by paragraph 2 of Article 10. Notwithstanding the policy considerations that prompted the majority’s novel approach (paragraph 43 of the judgment), we are not convinced that there were good reasons for the Chamber to deviate in such a radical way from numerous previous judgments that had accepted the applicability of the aforementioned legitimate aim to various public entities and authorities in different countries, in both criminal and civil contexts. 3. The Court has so far invariably acknowledged the existence of a legitimate aim in similar cases, irrespective of whether the parties disputed this point or not (compare the cases cited in paragraph 42 of the judgment, and Frisk and Jensen v. Denmark, no. 19657/12, §§ 42-50, 5 December 2017, where the applicants explicitly challenged the existence of a legitimate aim). In the latter case, the Court unambiguously rejected the applicants’ submission that “the judiciary is the only public authority whose protection is capable of constituting a legitimate aim under Article 10 § 2” (ibid., § 47), a conclusion which is contradicted by the majority’s overly restrictive assumption in paragraph 37 of the present judgment. 4. In addition to the various cases cited in the present judgment and those where the interference served a more specific aim of “maintaining the authority ... of the judiciary” (see, most recently, Freitas Rangel v. Portugal, no. 78873/13, § 48, 11 January 2022, not yet final), the Court has already accepted the legitimate aim of “the protection of the reputation ... of others” in respect of such public institutions as the police (Savva Terentyev v. Russia, no. 10692/09, § 60, 28 August 2018) or the prosecutor’s office (Goryaynova v. Ukraine, no. 41752/09, § 56, 8 October 2020). The majority’s view, restricting the reputational protection to public institutions which compete on the marketplace (paragraphs 44-46 of the judgment), does not sit well with the above case-law. Nor is it convincing, in our view, to determine the eligibility of “easily identifiable” members of a public authority to protection 15