Council of Europe 2004-2011 The opinions expressed in this website are not necessarily those of the

Both cases concern libel actions brought against the applicant company following the publication of articles by the national daily newspaper, Nový Čas, owned by the legal predecessor of Ringier. Nový Čas is one of the most widely read newspapers honda s2000 in Slovakia.
In one complaint, Nový Čas published a series of articles in May 2004 about a man who had been a contestant on the television quiz ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ earlier that year. The contestant had answered 13 questions correctly and had been playing for the equivalent of EUR 50,000 on the fourteenth question.
The articles in Nový Čas stated that there was a dispute between the organisers of the quiz and the contestant. The organisers claimed that the contestant had been suspected of having cheated using electronic communication. The contestant alleged that the fourteenth question had been ambiguous and that he had in fact answered it correctly.
In February 2005, the contestant launched a claim for libel against Ringier, arguing, among other things, that the Nový Čas articles had wrongly suggested honda s2000 that he was a cheat and had been charged with a criminal honda s2000 offence.
The contestant s claim was successful and the court ordered Ringier to publish an apology and pay the contestant the equivalent of EUR 1,450 in damages. The company appealed but it was unsuccessful and its last application was dismissed in February 2009.
In the other case, an article published in October 2001 told the story of an accident in a car park where a driver had hit a pedestrian, who later died from his injuries. The pedestrian was the son of a chief prosecutor in the local district and the driver was detained following the incident. The article focused on the extensive time the Slovakian courts honda s2000 were taking to address the driver s bail request.
However, it also contained the name of the chief prosecutor and that of his son. The prosecutor sued Ringier s legal predecessor for libel, submitting that the article had caused him pain and distress. He succeeded, and in February 2005, a Slovakian court ordered the company to publish an apology and make a payment of 100,000 Slovak korunas (SKK) in damages (the equivalent of around 2,600 euros (EUR) at that time).
Relying on Article 10 (freedom honda s2000 of expression), Ringer complains in both cases that the findings of libel by the Slovakian courts were arbitrary and in particular, that the courts had focused exclusively on the protection of the claimants privacy, honda s2000 completely disregarding its right to freedom of expression.
Council of Europe 2004-2011 The opinions expressed in this website are not necessarily those of the Council of Europe or its member states.