The ECHR awarded 27 thousand euros in compensation to a journalist whom Rostov judges accused of libel

The European Court of Human Rights awarded 27,450 euros in compensation for moral and material damage to the Rostov journalist Alexander Tolmachev, who lost in libel suits from two judges. The decision is published on the official website of the ECtHR.

Complaints about Tolmachev's publications were filed by two Rostov judges more than a decade ago. An article published in 2008 titled "The Judge's Multiplication Table" talked about the dismissal of a judge and how she received a bribe. In the second article for 2010 (“Emergency of judicial scale”), it was about the seizure of part of the territory of an apartment building.

As a result, Tolmachev lost in both claims, and he was ordered to pay compensation to the judges in the total amount of 17,700 euros.

The Strasbourg Court concluded that the Russian courts violated Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (freedom of expression). Thus, the ECHR ordered Russia to pay Tolmachev 17,700 euros in compensation for material damage and 9,750 euros in compensation for moral damage.

• In 2014, a court in the Krasnodar Territory sentenced Alexander Tolmachev to 9 years in prison in a case of extortion. According to investigators, he demanded remuneration from various people in exchange for not publishing revealing materials about them. Tolmachev himself denied his guilt and linked his persecution with articles about the chairman of the Rostov Regional Court.