KABLIS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
23
B. Merits
1. Submissions by the parties
75. The applicant submitted that he had used his VKontakte account and
his blog to express his opinions on matters of public interest. In particular,
in the blog entries and the VKontakte post in question he had expressed his
opinion about the arrest of the government of the Komi Republic and about
the obstacles to a collective discussion of that issue. The blocking of those
posts had therefore restricted his freedom of expression.
76. The applicant further submitted that section 15.3 of the Information
Act, which had served as a legal basis for the restriction, had not been
foreseeable in its application. It particular, it had not been clear what had
been meant by public events “held in breach of the established procedure”.
Nor had that provision provided for sufficient guarantees against abuse
because it had not required the domestic authorities to give detailed reasons
for their finding that the public event which had been the subject of his calls
for participation would be held in breach of the established procedure.
Furthermore, the decision to block his posts had been taken by the
law-enforcement authorities without prior judicial authorisation. Lastly, the
domestic law permitted the blocking of the entire social networking account
even if only one post published thereon had been considered to be unlawful,
whereas it was technically possible to block a specific post without blocking
the entire account.
77. The applicant also complained that the interference with his right to
freedom of expression had not pursued any legitimate aim and had not been
necessary in a democratic society. He argued that it was important for the
public authorities to show a certain degree of tolerance towards unlawful
peaceful gatherings (he referred to Nurettin Aldemir and Others v. Turkey,
nos. 32124/02 and 6 others, 18 December 2007). Consequently, it was also
important to show the same degree of tolerance towards articles published
on the Internet about preparations for such peaceful gatherings. The Russian
authorities had shown zero tolerance in his own case, however.
Furthermore, by blocking access to his VKontakte account, they had
blocked access to other material published thereon which had not been
found to be illegal. The judicial review of the blocking decision had been
superficial: the domestic courts had not applied the “proportionality” or the
“necessity in a democratic society” tests.
78. The Government submitted that the town administration had refused
to approve the public event planned by the applicant; he had not therefore
been entitled to hold it. Despite that, he had described the preparations for
holding the event in question and had called for participation in it on his
VKontakte page and on his blog. By calling for participation in a public
event to be held in breach of the established procedure, the applicant had
breached information distribution rules. The blocking of his VKontakte