ECHR: "Such fines are equivalent to the form of censorship"

On October 22, 2024, the European Human Rights Court made a decision in the case of The New Times in 22 million 500 thousand rubles, which was the largest fine in the history of Russian media. The court ordered the Russian state to pay NT material damage in the amount of 289,670 euros and 10,000 euros to the chief editor and CEO Evgenia Albats*

NT was fined even in the previous, pre -war life - on October 26, 2018 by the justice of the judicial section No. 367 of the Tver district of Moscow. All details can be read here: Newtimes.ru/articles/detail/171867 . Thanks to our readers: within 96 hours, 18,000 people transferred us 27 million rubles, the average transfer was 300-500 rubles. Translated from all over the country - from Sakhalin and Kamchatka to Moscow and Kaliningrad. These were great days and watches - there is no better reward for journalists than to see how his readers are fighting for the magazine.

We paid a fine, but became full bankrupt. In Russia, we went through all the courts, including the Supreme Court, with the famous - negative - result. In 2019, lawyer Galina Arapova filed our case with the European Court of Human Rights. Five years have passed - and we won this business.

This is how this is described in the decision of the ECHR ( link ):

“... As for the media organization, the“ new times ”(the publisher of The New Times.-NT) (No. 27874/19) was not recognized as the“ foreign agent ”, but was fined that it did not report funds from another Russian NPO, which is the“ foreign agent ”(our support for“ independent media ”, which was recognized as the“ foreign agent ”even In 2014 - NT). The fine of 22,500,000 rubles amounted, according to the court, 99.7% of the total organization budget for the previous year and became the largest one-time fine ever imposed on the Russian media organization. The court believes that the authorities wrote out hundreds of fines against media organization for several months. Each publication was considered as a separate offense, which led to the total amount of responsibility, approaching several hundred millions of rubles. The court repeats that since the main offense was only normative in nature, and the content of publications was not declared as untruthful, illegal or representing the language of hatred or discrimination, such fines were “excessive burden” and were equivalent to the form of censorship aimed at suppressing criticism and undermining the organization’s contribution to public debate. In addition, the imposition of fines on individual content creators for non -compliance with the requirements for marking shortly after they are included in the list of “foreign agents”, without providing them with real opportunity to adapt to new requirements, indicates the intention of the authorities to suppress critical voices and create a cooling effect on freedom of expression of opinions. This approach seems to be called upon to recapture people with a desire to participate in public discussions, and not pursue the legal goals of transparency or national security.

The imposition of a significant fine, which was confiscated and was used in a situation where the legal origin of funds and compliance with tax obligations was not in doubt, is clearly disproportionate. This put a media organization on the brink of bankruptcy and undermined the protection of freedom of expression in accordance with Article 10 of the Convention /.../ ... ”

The New Times, the remnants of his editorial office and the editor -in -chief sincerely thank lawyer Galina Arapov, for the fact that she conducted our business for five years in the ECHR what is called Pro Bono , that is, without any compensation, and achieved a positive result.

There was a little left: to get payment from the Russian state.

* Evgeny Albats the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation declared a “foreign agent”.