10 WĘGRZYNOWSKI AND SMOLCZEWSKI v. POLAND JUDGMENT 45. Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court notes that the Government failed to adduce any case-law of the domestic courts or examples of the media’s practice to show that a rectification request under Article 31 of the Press Act has ever been successfully used to have a defamatory article present on a newspaper’s website removed from it or rectified by the addition of a reference to a judgment finding it defamatory. As to the request to apply for an interim injunction referred to by the Government, the Court observes that the claim to have the impugned article removed from the newspaper’s website constituted the essence of the applicant’s civil claim. That claim failed. It has not therefore been convincingly demonstrated that an identical request submitted in the course of proceedings for an interim injunction and aiming at the removal of that article from the website temporarily, pending the adoption of a decision on the merits of the case, offered any reasonable prospects of success. In any event, no examples of relevant domestic practice have been adduced. This part of the Government’s preliminary objection must therefore fail. 46. The Government were further of the view that the applicant had failed to have proper and diligent recourse to Articles 23 and 24 of the Civil Code, as he had failed to formulate the original civil claim properly. He could have requested the court to order the person responsible for the alleged breach to remove the online version of the article and redress its effects. 47. The Court observes that the Government reiterated the same argument when addressing the substance of the application (see paragraphs 50-51 below). The Court finds that this part of the Government’s objection is a matter which goes to the merits of the case. 5. Conclusion 48. The Court notes that the application lodged by the second applicant is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible. B. Merits 1. The parties’ submissions 49. The second applicant submitted that his rights to respect for his private life and reputation had been breached as a result of the second set of civil proceedings. The judicial authorities had failed in their positive obligation to apply the law in a manner that would make it possible for him to obtain the effective protection of his rights under Article 8 of the Convention. These rights had been breached as a result of the continued presence on the newspaper’s website of an article which had already been