issued by the Registrar of the Court  
ECHR 307 (2022)  
06.10.2022  
Freedom of expression no excuse for publishing inaccurate and unreliable  
information  
In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of Khural and Zeynalov v. Azerbaijan (application  
no. 55069/11) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:  
no violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.  
The case concerned the civil liability of the Khural newspaper for publishing defamatory statements  
about a well-known high-ranking government official.  
The Court noted in particular that, although the newspaper could claim to have a public “watchdog”  
function, reporting on issues of high public interest, it also had a duty to act in good faith in order to  
provide accurate and reliable information in accordance with the ethics of journalism. The Court  
found that the newspaper had failed in its “duties and responsibilities” under Article 10 of the  
Convention.  
Principal facts  
The first applicant, Khural, is a newspaper published in Baku. It has legal personality under  
Azerbaijani law. The second applicant, Avaz Tapdig oglu Zeynalov, a founder and the editor-in-chief  
of Khural, was born in 1970 and lives in Baku.  
In May 2010 an article concerning a well-known high-ranking government official, the head of the  
President’s Office, Ramiz Mehdiyev, and his alleged relationships with a prominent Azerbaijani poet,  
Bakhtiyar Vahabzade, and with the former head of the executive authority in Sheki, Ashraf  
Mammadov, was published in Khural. The article suggested that Mr Mehdiyev hated Mr Vahabzad  
and had tried, without success, to prevent his being elected as a Member of Parliament in 2000; had  
organised a riot against Mr Mammadov in Sheki because he had not prevented Mr Vahabzad’s re-  
election; had tried to have Mr Vahabzad’s mandate as an MP called off; and had prevented him from  
being commemorated following his death.  
The following month, Mr Mehdiyev lodged a civil action against Khural arguing that the article  
contained false statements damaging his honour, dignity, and professional reputation, and alleging  
that the title of the article and certain extracts in particular were defamatory.  
The first-instance court found that the allegations in the article were statements affecting  
Mr Mehdiyev’s reputation and lacking any factual basis, that Khural had failed to submit any  
evidence proving those allegations and that the article amounted to an abuse of the right to  
freedom of expression. It ordered the newspaper to issue an apology, to refute the statements and  
to pay 10,000 Azerbaijani Manat (AZN) (which at the time was equivalent to approximately  
10,000 euros (EUR)) in respect of non-pecuniary damage, to be transferred to an orphanage as  
requested by the plaintiff.  
1. Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month period following its delivery,  
any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges  
considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final  
judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.  
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.  
Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution.  
The newspaper appealed, arguing that by publishing the article it had performed its role of public  
“watchdog”, reporting on topics of high public interest; that Mr Mehdiyev, who was a well-known  
high-ranking government official, should have been more tolerant of criticism; that the statements  
made in the article constituted value judgments and therefore no proof was required; and that the  
article merely reproduced and commented on information that had been published earlier that  
month in the Gundam Khabar newspaper.  
The Baku Court of Appeal upheld the first-instance court’s judgment, and the Supreme Court  
dismissed a subsequent cassation appeal as unfounded.  
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court  
The applicants complained under Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the Convention that the civil  
defamation proceedings against the newspaper and the ensuing penalty had breached their right to  
freedom of expression. The Khural newspaper argued that the penalty imposed on it for non-  
pecuniary damage had been unduly harsh and excessive and had caused its closure.  
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 17 August 2011.  
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:  
Síofra O’Leary (Ireland), President,  
Mārtiņš Mits (Latvia),  
Lətif Hüseynov (Azerbaijan),  
Ivana Jelić (Montenegro),  
Mattias Guyomar (France),  
Kateřina Šimáčková (the Czech Republic),  
Mykola Gnatovskyy (Ukraine),  
and also Victor Soloveytchik, Section Registrar.  
Decision of the Court  
The Court observed that the Khural newspaper possessed a legal personality as a registered media  
entity and consequently had its own rights and responsibilities, distinct from those of its founder and  
editor-in-chief. As the latter had not been a party to the domestic civil defamation proceedings and  
had not claimed to be the author of the article, the domestic proceedings could not be said to have  
affected him as a journalist. Therefore, the Court found that he was not a victim of the alleged  
violation of Article 10, and rejected this part of the application.  
In cases concerning a conflict between the right to reputation and the right to freedom of  
expression, the Court reiterated that domestic courts were expected to perform a balancing exercise  
between the two rights, applying the criteria established in the Court’s relevant case-law and basing  
their decisions on relevant and sufficient reasons. Finding that the domestic courts had failed to  
carry out the required balancing exercise between the newspaper’s freedom of expression and  
Mr Mehdiyev’s rights and interests under Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the  
Convention, it did so itself, on the basis of the criteria generally applicable to the dissemination of  
statements affecting private life by the media – namely, whether the article in question had  
contributed to a debate of public interest, the degree of notoriety of the person affected, the  
content and form of the statements made, the way in which the information had been obtained and  
its veracity, and the nature and severity of the penalty imposed.  
It found that the statements made in the article could be seen to contribute to a debate of public  
interest because they were about issues such as parliamentary elections, and the person concerned,  
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Mr Mehdiyev, as the head of the President’s Office, was a well-known high-ranking government  
official. Given that he was a public figure, the limits on acceptable criticism of him were wider.  
Whereas the Court acknowledged that some of the statements had been charged with subjective  
feelings and emotions and could be deemed to be “value judgments”, the article had mainly referred  
to specific dates, persons, and incidents, which the Court considered to be assertions of facts. It  
observed that the newspaper had not demonstrated that it had checked them for truthfulness.  
Although it could claim to have a public “watchdog” function, reporting on issues of high public  
interest, the newspaper also had a duty to act in good faith in order to provide accurate and reliable  
information in accordance with the ethics of journalism. The Court concluded that the newspaper  
had failed in its “duties and responsibilities” under Article 10 of the Convention.  
Regarding the nature and severity of the penalty imposed, the newspaper had not complained of its  
severity before the domestic courts, nor contested the measures taken to enforce it. Moreover, no  
documents had been submitted to the domestic courts or to the Court detailing its financial situation  
at the time. Consequently, there was nothing to show that the penalty had undermined its financial  
situation to such a degree and had led to its closure as claimed. Moreover, it appeared that Khural  
had ceased its paper version only; its Internet version (www.xural.com) had remained active and had  
continued to publish. Furthermore, according to an article on its website, the failure to publish a  
paper version of Khural had been due to the lack of a publisher.  
The Court concluded that there had been no violation of Article 10 of the Convention.  
The judgment is available only in English.  
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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe member  
States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.  
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