MAGYAR TARTALOMSZOLGÁLTATÓK EGYESÜLETE AND INDEX.HU ZRT
v. HUNGARY JUDGMENT
11
Rekvényi v. Hungary [GC], no. 25390/94, § 35, ECHR 1999-III). The Court
also reiterates that it is not for it to express a view on the appropriateness of
methods chosen by the legislature of a respondent State to regulate a given
field. Its task is confined to determining whether the methods adopted and
the effects they entail are in conformity with the Convention (see Gorzelik
and Others v. Poland [GC], no. 44158/98, § 67, ECHR 2004-I). Thus, the
Court confines itself to examining whether the Kúria’s application of the
relevant provisions of the Civil Code to the applicants’ situation was
foreseeable for the purposes of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. As the
Court has previously held, the level of precision required of domestic
legislation – which cannot provide for every eventuality – depends to a
considerable degree on the content of the law in question, the field it is
designed to cover and the number and status of those to whom it is
addressed (see Centro Europa 7 S.r.l. and Di Stefano v. Italy [GC],
no. 38433/09, § 142, ECHR 2012). The Court has found that persons
carrying on a professional activity, who are used to having to proceed with a
high degree of caution when pursuing their occupation, can on this account
be expected to take special care in assessing the risks that such activity
entails (see Lindon, Otchakovsky-Laurens and July v. France [GC],
nos. 21279/02 and 36448/02, § 41, ECHR 2007-IV).
50. The Court notes that the Kúria did not embark on an explanation
whether and how Directive 2000/31/EC was taken into account when
interpreting section 2(lc) of Act no. CVIII of 2001 and arriving to the
conclusion that the applicants were not intermediaries in terms of that
provision, despite the applicants’ suggestion that the correct application of
the EU law should have exculpated them in the circumstances.
51. Nonetheless, the Court is satisfied on the facts of this case that the
provisions of the Civil Code made it foreseeable for a media publisher
running a large Internet news portal for an economic purpose and for a selfregulatory body of Internet content providers, that they could, in principle,
be held liable under domestic law for unlawful comments of third-parties.
Thus, the Court considers that the applicants was in a position to assess the
risks related to their activities and that they must have been able to foresee,
to a reasonable degree, the consequences which these could entail. It
therefore concludes that the interference in issue was “prescribed by law”
within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 10 of the Convention
(see mutatis mutandis, Delfi AS, cited above, §§ 125 to 129).
52. The Government submitted that the interference pursued the
legitimate aim of protecting the rights of others. The Court accepts this.
53. It thus remains to be ascertained whether it was “necessary in a
democratic society” in order to achieve the aim pursued.