Date: 25 July 2002
The applicants are two French nationals living in Paris, Jean-Marie Colombani and Eric Incyan, who were born in 1948 and 1960 respectively, and the company Le Monde.
In its issue of 3 November 1995 the newspaper Le Monde, of which Mr Colombani is the publishing director, published an article by Mr Incyan about a confidential version of a report by the Geopolitical Drugs Observatory (OGD) on drug production and trafficking in Morocco. The report had been compiled at the request of the Commission of the European Communities following Morocco’s application for membership of the European Union and a version of it was published in 1994 with the names of the drug traffickers edited out. It stated, among other things, that the volume and expansion of cannabis production there “made Morocco a serious contender for the title of the world’s leading hashish exporter”.
On 23 November 1995 the King of Morocco lodged an official application with the French Minister for Foreign Affairs for criminal proceedings to be brought against the newspaper Le Monde. Mr Colombani and Mr Incyan were prosecuted under section 36 of the Law of 29 July 1881 for insulting a foreign head of state. They were acquitted by the Paris Criminal Court on 5 July 1996, which held that the journalist had acted in good faith, pursued a legitimate aim and cited a report whose reliability was undisputed.
The King of Morocco and the public prosecutor appealed against that decision. The Paris Court of Appeal held that the desire to draw the public’s attention to the responsibility of the King’s royal entourage and the King’s tolerance of that situation had been inspired by malicious intent. It also criticised the journalist for failing to check that his facts were accurate and up to date, and found that the facts of the case taken as a whole showed a lack of good faith. It consequently convicted the applicants of insulting a foreign head of state, sentenced them to a fine of 5,000 French francs (FRF) and ordered them to pay King Hassan II FRF 1 in damages and FRF 10,000 under Article 475-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It also ordered Le Monde to publish particulars of the convictions. The applicants appealed to the Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation, which dismissed their appeal on 20 October 1998, after finding that their comments had been offensive and maliciously aimed at drawing the reader’s attention to the King personally.
Relying on Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the applicants complained of an infringement of their freedom of expression.
Citation: Colombani and others v France (App no 51279/99) ECHR 25 June 2002
(from the official press-release prepared by the Registry Office of the European Court of Human Rights)
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