For those interested, the following source gives a brief review of the ECHR position on defamation law:
Source:
https://fulbrightyearitaly.com/2015...nder-the-european-convention-on-human-rights/
Excerpt:
The ECHR has issued several rulings applying the proportionality principle to defamation in general and criminal defamation specifically.
First, the Court has held that enhanced penalties for defaming politicians {and other public officials} are not proportional even if the state can prove that they closely adhere to the interest of protecting the subject’s reputation. The Convention protects harsh criticism leveled at politicians because “freedom of political debate is at the very core of the concept of a democratic society which prevails throughout the Convention,” the Court wrote.
More specifically, “The limits of acceptable criticism are accordingly wider as regards a politician as such than as regards a private individual” because the politician “inevitably and knowingly lays himself open to close scrutiny of his every word and deed by both journalists at the public at large,” the Court wrote. The politician must therefore “display a greater degree of tolerance” of criticism.
Second, courts must accept the “good faith defense,” meaning that defamation laws cannot punish journalists who have sufficient reason to believe a particular piece of information was true at press time. This reflects a very pragmatic understanding of the media business, namely that news is a “perishable commodity” and that delaying publication even for a short period “may well deprive it of all its value and interest.”
For criminal defamation, the “good faith defense” is even stronger: criminal defamation statutes cannot punish journalists {or other persons} who believed the information they published was true. In other words, penal code provisions should only apply to intentional defamation; all other forms should be civil crimes.
The court has also never held that a jail sentence was proportionate to the crime of defamation, even in the case of intentional defamation. Jail sentences “endanger the very core of the freedom of expression and function as censorship for the entire media, hampering the press in its role of watchdog,” according to one scholar.
