Ban of the weekly Svedok misapplication of the public information act

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights maintains that the freedom of expression has been violated by the ban on the dissemination of issue of the weekly Svedok carrying an interview with the main suspect of the Djindjic assassination, Milorad Lukovic Legija. Notwithstanding the irresponsible and sensationalist reports of this weekly, which render it unworthy of being labelled as serious media, the decision to ban the issue rendered by the District Court in Serbia is not explained convincingly and clearly and constitutes a misapplication of the Public Information Act and international human rights treaties.Prohibiting dissemination of information is one of the strictest limitations of the freedom of expression and democratic societies may resort to it only if there is strong social interest which cannot be protected in any other manner. The Court failed to be guided by these standards in the Svedok case.

• The Court found that “although the text does not advocate violence, that is nevertheless the context – publication of the interview in the existing social circumstances and the publicly known facts from the past of the interviewee constitute incitement to direct violence and propagation of war”. However, prohibiting the dissemination of information can only pertain to information directly inciting to grounds for prohibition (e.g. violent overthrow of the constitutional order, propagation of war or violence) i.e. that the grounds for the prohibition are the direct consequence of the information. Only than can a ban be “necessary in a democratic society”. By relying on the “context” in which a specific text was published, the Court misinterpreted and misapplied the standard in Art. 17 of the Public Information Act and the ECHR.
• The Court also invokes the ICCPR and ECHR, underscoring that these international treaties allow for restricting the freedom of expression. Although one can only welcome the national courts’ new practice of invoking international human rights documents, one must note that the Court neither reviewed nor applied the principle of proportionality, a key issue in international provisions on restricting human rights. The Serbian Act also includes the principle and insists that the ban be “necessary in a democratic society”.

Given that freedom of expression is a fundamental element of a free and democratic society, the BCHR believes that when deciding to apply serious restrictions, such as the prohibition of dissemination, courts must extremely carefully weigh whether such a measure is “necessary in a democratic society” and whether the published information would directly incite to one of the grounds for prohibition. As the Svedok case shows, these conditions have not been met.