Press Law

Last week, the Court of Amsterdam in preliminary relief proceedings got a chance to shed light on the consequences of the much-discussed Google Spain (or Costeja) judgment of the Court of Justice EU in the Netherlands. As far as we are aware, this is the first time that a national court was asked to apply the Google Spain ruling. The proceedings in Amsterdam centred on one of the many ‘right to be forgotten’ requests Google received after the Google Spain judgment. This request was made by the owner of an escort agency who was convicted to six years’ imprisonment in 2012 for ‘attempted incitement of contract killing’, which conviction is still under appeal. He had been caught [Read more…] about Dutch Google Spain ruling: More Freedom of Speech, Less Right To Be Forgotten For Criminals

Verbatim – what is a photocopier? By Brett Weiner.

Dramatization of a transcript of an actual legal deposition about the use of photocopiers.

The case of Tierbefreier E.V. v. Germany before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) concerned the dissemination of a film of 20 minutes with the title ‘’Poisoning for Profit’’, showing monkeys used for research in a laboratory. The film was based on footage made by an undercover journalist who had used a hidden camera to document how the monkeys were treated by staff and what their living conditions were like. Before the applicant association Tierbefreier E.V. made the film public parts of the footage had been showed on TV by various broadcasting companies. The content of the film consisted to a large extent of accusations that the company using the monkeys did not live up to existing legal standards for using research animals. The German courts issued an injunction against Tierbefreier [Read more…] about ECHR in Tierbefreier v. Germany – Monkey Business, undercover reporting by an animal rights group

In the case of Print Zeitungsverlag GmbH v. Austria, Bezirksblatt, a regional newspaper distributed free of charge in in Tyrol in Austria, reported on an anonymous dissemination of a letter (printed in 300 copies) concerning two brothers who were both local politicians. The letter posed a number of questions about the brothers such as: “Would you buy a car from this man?”, “Is this man honest with his family?” and “Does this man have the necessary personal/professional qualifications?’’. The article in the regional newspaper was called “Anonymous campaign against M&M”. In the article the letter was published in its full length together with [Read more…] about European Court applies Von Hannover II criteria in defamation case

In 2012 a woman from Amsterdam called D. was convicted in summary proceedings for Cyberstalking, Identity Theft, Harassment, Threats and Defamation. She had been stalking the American film maker Christopher Johnson IV and the actress Mariana Tosca, mainly through the internet (we wrote about this case here, in Dutch). As far as we are aware, this was the first ruling in the Netherlands about cross-border stalking through the Internet. A special aspect of the case was that it was heard according to American law and that the Dutch court awarded punitive damages.

D. brought an appeal against the judgment. In its ruling, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal [Read more…] about Conviction of cyberstalker upheld on appeal

Guest post by Dirk Voorhoof, Ghent University.*

In its judgment of 25 June 2013 in the case of Youth Initiative for Human Rights v. Serbia the European Court of Human Rights has recognised more explicitly than ever before the right of access to documents held by public authorities, based on Article 10 of the Convention (right to freedom of expression and information). The judgment also recognises the importance of NGOs acting in the public interest. The judgment contains a particularly important [Read more…] about Article 10 of the Convention includes the right of access to data held by an intelligence agency

On 7 February 2012 the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) rendered a judgment not only in the Caroline van Hannover II judgment, but also in the case of Axel Springer vs. Germany. This case resembles that of the Princess of Monaco.

The Axel Springer case is about the publication of two articles about a well-known German television actor in the daily newspaper Bild, of which the Axel Springer group is the publisher. The first article alleged that the actor – who thanks his fame mostly to his role as a policeman – had been arrested for possession and use of [Read more…] about European Court in Axel Springer Case: Publications on Actor’s Possession of Cocaine Allowed

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered its judgment on 7 February 2012 in the Princess Caroline of Monaco II case. Just like the case that led to the first Princess Caroline judgment of 2004, this affair was also about the balance between her privacy and the freedom of the press. In the Caroline II judgment the Caroline I judgment is further elaborated on. The judges came to an unanimous ruling [Read more…] about European Court of Human Rights Has Rendered Von Hannover II judgment – More Freedom for Entertainment Press

On December 1, 2011 the Amsterdam Court rendered its judgment in the second summary proceedings about the Dutch movie ‘De Heineken Ontvoering’ (The Heineken Kidnapping), starring Rutger Hauer. These proceedings were instituted against producer IDTV by two men who were involved in the kidnapping of the beer mogul, Frans Meijer and Jan Boellaard. We reported in the October 2011 newsletter on the first summary proceedings, which were instituted by Willem Holleeder (also one of the kidnappers) against the producer. In that [Read more…] about Dutch Movie Producer IDTV Wins Second Procedure About Heineken Kidnapping Movie – Claims of Kidnappers Denied

Several stakeholders representing the online advertising, publishing and e-commerce industry have requested the Dutch Senate to substantively review the recently adopted Dutch cookie law after the summer recess.

We recently covered the adoption by Dutch Parliament [Read more…] about New Dutch cookie law to be debated in the Dutch Senate?