At issue is the violation of freedom of expression and degrading detention conditions.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) this Thursday ordered Portugal to pay 14,806 euros to close two cases involving violations of freedom of expression and degrading detention conditions.
The greatest weight in these compensations concerns a lawyer who complained of a violation of freedom of expression (Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights) and who saw the ECHR award her compensation of 4,106 euros for material damages and 9,750 for moral damages, totaling 13,856 euros.
At issue is a criminal complaint filed by a judge against the lawyer for alleged aggravated defamation, based on allegations of the judge’s lack of impartiality in a previous civil case.
The Azores criminal court initially acquitted the lawyer in September 2020, but the judge’s appeal to the Lisbon Court of Appeal overturned the sentence in 2021, ordering her to pay 3,800 euros (1,800 for defamation and 2,000 for non-pecuniary damages).
The defender was not satisfied with the decision and appealed to the ECHR, arguing that the conviction represented a violation of freedom of expression.
At the European level, the complainant and the Portuguese State ended up signing an agreement, with the Government committing to pay the amounts defined for compensation within three months, thus ending the dispute.
In relation to the other case, the Portuguese State will have to pay 950 euros to a citizen who complained about the inadequate detention conditions in the Porto prison between 16 and 26 May 2022. The Government acknowledged the poor conditions and offered to pay, but the complainant rejected the settlement proposal.
However, the court based in Strasbourg (France) explained that it already had extensive case law on this type of complaint and that the amounts proposed for payment by the Portuguese State were similar to other cases of this nature, so it refused to continue analyzing the issue and closed the case with the imposition of the compensation already accepted by Portugal.
