- Case:
- Cour d'Appel de Paris D. 1986.I.R.189 Case Berry v. Hersant Subsequent Developments
- Date:
- 05 March 1986
- Note:
- Translated French Cases and Materials under the direction of Professor B. Markesinis and M. le Conseiller Dominique Hascher
- Translated by:
- Tony Weir
- Copyright:
- Professor B. S. Markesinis
The publication by a newspaper of a photograph and the address of the home of two actors in which they had been violently attacked did not go beyond what the public was entitled to know, since the items were published in relation to a current event of general interest and it was relevant to specify the location, since the house in question was very isolated; furthermore the two actors had never evinced any desire to conceal the whereabouts of their house.
CA Paris 5 March 1986 : Two court decisions (CA Paris 15 May 1970 and TGI Paris 2 June 1976) had already recognised a violation of the private lives of famous personalities because their exact addresses were mentioned in a magazine. However, in these two instances, the decision emphasised for one thing the choice of a particularly discreet way of life, and for another asserted that the acquisition of a private residence established by itself the intention of escaping from public curiosity. Conversely, in the case in question, the article referred to concerned a "topical event of general interest" which had occurred in a place which was admittedly private, but remote, which facilitated (if it did not enable) the determination of its location when the article was read by the public. A judgment of the Cour de cassation (Civ 1, 20 February 2001) has repeated this principle, according to which "freedom to communicate information authorises the publication of pictures of people implicated in an event subject only to respect for the dignity of human beings" when quashing an appeal judgment (which had found that a journal which had published the photograph of a victim had committed a violation) on the ground that the court of appeal had itself observed "that the photograph did not involve pursuit of the sensational or any indecency, and that thus it did not infringe the dignity of the person shown". In other words, the protection of private life tends to recede in the face of information in which the public has a legitimate interest, even though this information related to a person's private activities or to his employment.
Translation by Raymond Youngs
This page last updated Thursday, 15-Dec-2005 09:05:51 CST. Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.