Are politicians and their families off-limits for the press? Balancing Privacy and Freedom of Expression in Mladina D.D. Ljubljana v Slovenia (No 2)

Dr Sophie Gallop, Nottingham Law School https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/law/sophie-gallop

On the 13^th of January 2026 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgment in the case of Mladina D.D. Ljubljana v Slovenia (No 2). A Slovenian magazine, ‘Mladina’, published an article in ‘Mladinamit’, the satirical section of the magazine, on a prominent politician, B.G., entitled ‘Not every Dr G. is Dr Goebbels’. . Underneath the headline the magazine ran a photo of B.G. with his family, captioned ‘Dr G with his family’, alongside a photo of the German Nazi politician Joseph Goebbels and his family, captioned ‘Dr Goebbels with his family’. B.G. brought a claim in defamation before the Slovenian courts, where legal standards governing the protection of an individual’s reputation and the elements required to establish defamation markedly differ from those under English law. More broadly, these requirements vary significantly across European jurisdictions.

The domestic Slovenian courts found the publication liable for defaming B.G. and had infringed his Article 8 Private Rights by publishing the family photo. The court awarded B.G. damages and ordered the magazine to issue an apology. B.G.’s family members also initiated entirely separate proceedings against the publishers of the magazine; B.G.’s children were awarded €14,000 in compensation and B.G.’s wife reaching an undisclosed settlement in damages.

The publisher made an application to the ECtHR alleging that it’s Article 10 right to Freedom of Expression had been breached with respect to defamation proceedings involving B.G. specifically.

The ECtHR confirmed the domestic court’s conclusion that the attack on B.G.’s reputation was serious enough to bring his Article 8 right to a Private Life into play and that the role of the domestic court and the ECtHR was to strike a fair balance between the two conflicting rights.

How does the Court’s balance a politician’s Private Life with the media’s right to Freedom of Expression?

The ECtHR has consistently concluded that when determining whether an interference with Freedom of Expression for the purpose of protecting Article 8 is necessary that five factors should be taken into account.

The ECtHR will consider firstly whether the publication has contributed to a debate of public interest; secondly, the degree of notoriety of the subject of the publication; thirdly, the prior conduct of the person concerned; fourthly, the method of obtaining the information and the veracity of that information; and finally, the content, form, and consequences of the publication.

In Mladina, both the domestic courts and the ECtHR concluded that B.G. was a public figure, and that he therefore should expect to be exposed to, and have a high degree of tolerance for, public scrutiny. Both courts also noted that the photographs were taken at a public event in which the family had actively participated, and that those photographs had previously been published in the press. The ECtHR also highlighted the title of the article and its location in the Mladinamit section, which the Court determined demonstrated its political and satirical dimensions. The ECtHR also determined that there had been no specific negative consequences as a result of the publication suffered by B.G. himself, concluding that the any reputational consequences suffered had not been demonstrated to be sufficiently serious to override the public interest in receiving the information in the article.

On the basis of these factors, the ECtHR found that the Slovenian courts had failed to demonstrate that there was a pressing social need to place the protection of B.G.’s reputation above the publisher’s right to Freedom of Expression. As a result, the finding of liability for defamation, the order for the apology, and the award of damages breached the magazine’s rights under Article 10.

What does this mean for the future of reporting on politicians and their families? 

This case was not revolutionary; it simply reaffirmed the ECtHR’s longstanding position with respect to balancing a public figure’s Article 8 rights against the media’s Article 10 rights.

Generally, the ECtHR has long emphasised that politicians should expect to be subject to media coverage because of their position as public figures, and should, as a result, display a greater degree of tolerance with respect to intrusion into their public and private lives (see for example Lingens v Austria and Nadtoka v Russia). In addition, the Court has reiterated that the public has an interest in that coverage; the public has the right to be informed, and this may even include aspects of the private lives of public figures(see for example the decision in Von Hannover v Germany (No 2) and Karhuvaara and Iltalehti v Finland). Whilst the media cannot cover or comment on politicians with absolute impunity, it is clear that, by dent of their position, politicians cannot expect to rely on the same level of Article 8 protection as enjoyed by Joe Public.

However, the ECtHR was also at pains to reiterate that this decision only reflected an attempt to balance the rights of B.G. against the magazine’s rights, rather than the rights of B.G.’s family who had obtained compensation in separate proceedings. The judgment emphasised that whilst B.G. was a public figure, his wife and minor children were private individuals. The ECtHR therefore indicated that whilst B.G. could expect to demonstrate a greater degree of tolerance for intrusive, unflattering, or satirical interference with his Private Life, the Court did not consider that his family, in particular his underage children, should expect to do the same.

The decision echoed the ECtHR’s previous finding in Dupate v Latvia. In this case the partner of a public figure was covertly photographed leaving hospital with her newborn and photos were published in a celebrity-focused magazine. The applicant’s partner, J.N., was the chairman of a political party which did not have seats in Parliament. Again, the question for the ECtHR was whether the domestic courts had struck a fair balance between the applicant’s Private Life and the magazine’s Freedom of Expression rights. The ECtHR firstly examined whether the story was one of public interest and concluded that whilst the story touched on a matter that had a public side, it was not a matter of general importance.

Fundamentally, however, the ECtHR concluded that whilst J.N. was a public figure, the applicant was not. The Court acknowledged that a private person could enter the public domain by association with another, and that because of the birth of her child with J.N. the applicant could be made susceptible to certain exposure with respect to this shared event. However, the ECtHR concluded that the type and extent of the material disclosed, alongside the focus on the applicant, went well beyond the notoriety the applicant may have derived from their association with J.N. or because of the shared event of the birth of their child. Whilst the applicant had previously given a press interview, the ECtHR emphasised that this was not an argument to deprive her of her right to privacy. Accordingly, the ECtHR found a breach of the applicant’s Article 8 private life.

The Mladina and Dupate judgments have emphasised the difference between politicians and their families when it comes to press coverage. Whilst politicians should expect a level of intrusion into their public and private lives, their families are not expected to suffer the same degree of scrutiny., This, however, is not the end of the story - should a politician’s partner become a public figure in their own right, should an element of their lives form part of a debate of general interest, or should they court routine media attention themselves, their protection under Article 8 will likely begin to diminish.

Further Reading

Mladina D.D. Ljubljana v Slovenia (No 2) App no 43388/17 (ECtHR 13 January 2026)

Dupate v Latvia App no 18068/11 (ECtHR 19 November 2020)

Lingens v Austria App 9815/82 (ECtHR 8 July 1986)

Nadtoka v Russia App 38010/05 (ECtHR 17 October 2016)

Karhuvaara and Iltalehti v Finland App no 53678/00 (ECtHR 16 February 2005)

Von Hannover v Germany (No 2) App nos 40660/08 and 60641/08 (ECtHR 7 February 2012)