The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Slovenia to pay more than €15,000 in costs and damages to leftist magazine Mladina.
The court ruled yesterday that Slovenia’s justice system had wrongfully infringed on the magazine’s right to freedom of expression when it fined the publication for comparing right-wing Slovenian politician and MEP Branko Grims to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Grims was an MP for the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) at the time. In 2024, he became an MEP for SDS.
The verdict marks the end of a legal battle that dates back almost 15 years.
On March 4, 2011, Mladina – a left-leaning weekly political magazine – had printed a picture of Grims, his wife and their three children, next to a similar picture of Joseph Goebbels and his family.
The montage was meant as a satirical commentary on a debate in Slovenia at the time that had begun when an SDS press officer – a former Mladina employee – had posted a similar collage on his private Facebook page.
The accompanying text read: “Our former colleague […] compared Dr G to Dr Goebbels on his Facebook page. The editorial board [of Mladina] joins the protest.
“It may perhaps appear that Dr G is drawing inspiration from his role model but he is still far from being like him; currently, he is not even half as good. Much more practice in manipulation is still needed. Sieg!”
Grims, his wife and children subsequently sued the magazine, claiming the juxtaposition with Goebbels who “symbolised totalitarianism, violence, ethnic cleansing and … the murder of his own children” had damaged his honour, good name and dignity.
In July 2013, the Ljubljana District Court dismissed Grims’ suit, saying the article in Mladina “clearly indicated that the comparison was solely between the political methods” of Grims and Goebbels.
Through a series of appeals both by Grims and Mladina the case went all the way to the Constitutional Court of Slovenia.
In December 2016, it determined that the magazine had been wrong in printing the pictures and that the satirical nature of the publication could not tip the balance in favour of freedom of expression.
In 2017, Mladina was ordered to pay €3,000 in damages to Grims as well as €14,000 in total to his three children.
In June 2017, Mladina lodged a complaint with the ECHR.
Now – more than eight years later – the court has ruled in favour of the magazine.
The Slovenian courts, the ECHR writes, had “failed to establish the convincingly any pressing social need for placing the protection of [Grims’] reputation above [Mladina’s] right to freedom of expression and the general interest in promoting freedom of expression”.
The verdict reads: “Even assuming [Grims’] reputation suffered as a result of the articles in question, it has not been demonstrated that the consequences suffered by him were sufficiently serious to override the public’s interest in receiving the information contained in them.”
The ECHR consequently ordered Slovenia to pay €15,253.85 to Mladina in compensation for the damages paid to Grims as well as the legal costs incurred.
Grims told Brussels Signal:
“The ECHR ruling is a scandalous precedent and a deeply regrettable signal for the protection of human rights and the dignity of the family in Europe. In the past, the legal practice of the ECHR was entirely different. Furthermore, the Court has clearly misinterpreted the case as a whole. The purpose of the lawsuit 15 years ago was to protect my family—especially my children, who were minors at the time—a point that was repeatedly emphasized throughout the process. By overturning the decisions of the Slovenian courts, which correctly identified the malicious nature of the publication, the ECHR has effectively given a ‘green light’ to the dehumanization of political opponents and, even more disturbingly, their minor children.”
The Slovenian MP added:
“The fundamental method of the leftists is agitation—the sowing of evil, envy, and hatred. This is precisely what the controversial publication in Mladina was about. […] This was by no means ‘satire’; it was an obvious and radical attempt to demonize a political opponent by using innocent children as tools for an ideological struggle.”
Grims added that his children became victims of physical attacks and gross humiliation as a consequence of the publication.
He concluded:
“By ruling that such a comparison is ‘acceptable’ in a democratic society, the Court has failed in its primary mission: the protection of the most vulnerable. This judgment sets a dangerous precedent where the ‘freedom of expression’ of radical media is placed above the right to privacy and the psychological well-being of children. It sends a message that if you are a conservative politician, your family members are legitimate targets for any form of humiliation. Attacking and discrediting a politician’s family, especially minor children, is considered the most base form of political reckoning throughout the democratic world and is in clear violation of fundamental civilizational and legal standards.”
