29/09/2023, 12:35 SANCHEZ v. FRANCE - 45581/15 (Judgment : No Article 10 - Freedom of expression-{general} : Grand Chamber) [2023] ECHR 418 (1… comments on his Facebook “wall”, and in view of the specific local political context, the Chamber found, having regard to the margin of appreciation afforded to the respondent State, that the decision of the domestic courts to convict the applicant for not having promptly deleted the unlawful comments posted by third parties on his “wall”, which he was using in support of his election campaign, had been based on relevant and sufficient grounds. Accordingly, it held that the interference could be considered “necessary in a democratic society” within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. B. The parties’ submissions 1. The applicant 88. The applicant pointed out that he had been convicted in his capacity as “producer” within the meaning of French law, without having received any notification asking him to remove the impugned comments. He submitted that it had not been proven that he had been aware of the comments or of their unlawfulness. He also pointed to the fact that he had been using a Facebook account as a local councillor and that the impugned comments had been posted by authors who had been both identified and convicted, his own conviction thus replicating theirs. At the relevant time, Facebook’s parameters had not provided for any filtering of comments prior to posting. The monitoring obligation imposed, according to the Chamber judgment, on a Facebook account holder would be very burdensome and would present him or her with irreconcilable conflicts of interest. 89. In the applicant’s submission, in view of the scale of the task, the holder of a Facebook account would inevitably be forced to engage in censorship owing to the risk of criminal proceedings, even in respect of remarks that were not manifestly unlawful. He took the view that his case, in reality, concerned the question of remarks which, while virulent, polemical or unpleasant, did not exceed the permissible limits of freedom of expression in political matters, particularly when made during an election campaign. 90. As regards the legality of his criminal conviction, he submitted that the criteria of accessibility, precision and foreseeability were lacking. He pointed out that, although the basis for his conviction had been section 24 of the Law of 29 July 1881, it was in fact section 93-3 of Law no. 82652 of 29 July 1982 on audiovisual communication, enabling his liability to be engaged as “producer”, within the meaning of that provision, which was at issue in the present case. https://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2023/418.html 46/100