Publicaţia Periodică 'Exclusiv Media' S.R.L. v. the Republic of Moldova

FIFTH SECTION

Applications nos. 10763/18 and 33241/19 PUBLICAŢIA PERIODICĂ ‘EXCLUSIV MEDIA’ S.R.L. against the Republic of Moldova

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 8 October 2026 as a Committee composed of:

María Elósegui , President , Diana Sârcu, Sébastien Biancheri , judges , and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the applications (nos. 10763/18 and 33241/19) against the Republic of Moldova lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 13 February 2018 and 26 April 2019 respectively, by a company registered in the Republic of Moldova, Publicaţia Periodică ‘Exclusiv Media’ S.R.L. – “the applicant company”, which was represented by Mr P. Burduja, who resides in Chișinău;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1 The applicant company is the owner of exclusivtv.md, an online television channel. On 22 December 2017 Law no. 257 was passed, which amended the Audiovisual Code by introducing the notion of information security of the State. In accordance with the amendments (notably to Article 9 of the Audiovisual Code), media outlets were allowed to air radio and television programmes with informative, informative ‑ analytic, military and political content if they had been created in the European Union, the United States of America, Canada or the States Parties to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television. Failure to abide by that provision was punishable by a fine under the amended Article 38 of the Audiovisual Code, with the possibility of the broadcasting licence being revoked for repeated non ‑ compliance and after lesser sanctions had been applied.

2 According to the applicant company, it had until 12 February 2018, when the amendments entered into force, to remove from its schedule all programmes not complying with the new rule.

3 On 4 June 2018 the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova delivered a decision, at the request of the President of the Republic of Moldova, finding that the amendments of 22 December 2017 had been constitutional.

4 On 8 November 2018 a new Code of Audiovisual Services was passed. It came into force on 1 January 2019. In accordance with Article 5 of that Code, at least 50% of television services broadcasting audiovisual programmes purchased from abroad had to originate from member States of the European Union or States Parties to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television. Under Article 17 of the same Code, in order to protect the national audiovisual space, media outlets were allowed to air radio and television programmes with informative, informative ‑ analytic, military and political content if they had been created in the European Union, the United States of America, Canada or the States Parties to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television. Failure to abide by that provision was punishable by a fine under Article 84 of the same Code, with the possibility of the broadcasting licence being revoked for repeated non ‑ compliance and after lesser sanctions had been applied.

5 The applicant company complained of a breach of Article 10 of the Convention because of the obligation to exclude from its list of programmes the content prohibited by legislative acts. It also complains under Articles 13 and 14 of the Convention that it did not have an effective remedy with respect to the complaint under Article 10 and that it had been discriminated against.

6 Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single decision.

7 The Court reiterates its established case-law that in order to claim to be the victim of a violation, a person must be directly affected by the disputed measure. The Convention does not, therefore, provide for the bringing of an action popularis for the interpretation of the rights set out therein or permit individuals to complain about a provision of national law simply because they consider, without having been directly affected by it, that it may contravene the Convention (see, for example, Klass and Others v. Germany , 6 September 1978, § 33, Series A no. 28). Where legislation affecting all citizens is in issue but no direct link between the law in question and the obligations or effects it created for the applicants can be established, the Court will not find that they have standing as victims (see Dimitras and Others v. Greece (dec.), nos. 59573/09 and 65211/09, § 31, 4 July 2017).

8 It is, however, open to a person to contend that a law violates his or her rights, in the absence of an individual measure of implementation, if he or she is required either to modify his or her conduct because of it or to risk being prosecuted (see, for example, Dudgeon v. the United Kingdom , 22 October 1981, § 41, Series A no. 45) or if he or she is a member of the class of people who risk being directly affected by the legislation (see Johnston and Others v. Ireland , 18 December 1986, § 42, Series A no. 112, and Open Door and Dublin Well Woman v. Ireland , 29 October 1992, § 44, Series A no. 246 ‑ A). Additionally, legislation very broadly suppressing the expression of specific types of opinion, leading to people adopting a kind of self ‑ censorship, can amount to interference with freedom of expression (see Ali Gürbüz v. Turkey , nos. 52497/08 and 6 others, § 60, 12 March 2019, with further references, and Borzykh v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 11575/24, §§ 43-44, 19 November 2024).

9 Overall, the answer to the question of whether an applicant can claim to be the victim of a general measure will depend on an assessment of the circumstances of each case, in particular the nature and scope of the disputed measure and its potential impact on the applicant (see Akdeniz and Others v. Turkey , nos. 41139/15 and 41146/15, § 57, 4 May 2021).

10 The Court also reiterates that it is not sufficient that a violation of the Convention is “evident” from the facts of the case or the applicant’s submissions. Rather, the applicant must complain that a certain act or omission entailed a violation of the rights set forth in the Convention or the Protocols thereto, in a manner which should not leave the Court to second ‑ guess whether or not a certain complaint has been raised. This means that the Court has no power to substitute itself for the applicant and formulate new complaints simply on the basis of the arguments and facts advanced (see Grosam v. the Czech Republic [GC], no. 19750/13, §§ 90 and 91, 1 June 2023).

11 With the above considerations in mind, the Court will assess whether the applicant company in the present case has shown that its freedom of expression was affected by the disputed legislative measures and what the consequences of any interference were.

12 It observes that when lodging its two applications, the applicant company specified its field of activity as being “radio and television activities”, without any further details. In the factual description which it submitted to the Court, it argued that “following the passing of the legislative act, it [had been] obligated to remove from [its] list of programmes the programmes prohibited by that legislative act, before 12 February 2018” and that “... for the breach of the [relevant legal provisions] the applicant can be punished, even with the withdrawal of its licence...”. However, the Court notes that nowhere did the applicant company mention which radio or television channel was concerned or give any details about which programmes it had had to remove. Similarly, the applicant company did not specify whether it had already been broadcasting radio and/or television programmes originating from outside the geographic area identified in the legislation or had only intended to do so. Moreover, intention to broadcast alone would not suffice, as the foreign owner of the relevant programme must have been shown to be cooperative, or at least not opposed to the applicant company’s broadcasting the programme. In the absence of any details about its broadcasting activities, or about concluded contracts, in particular with respect to programmes obtained from abroad, or about sanctions already applied, the complaints about the limitation of its rights remains too abstract to allow the Court to determine whether the applicant company has been affected or risks being affected by the legislation complained of.

13 The Court concludes that the applicant company’s complaint does not fall within the notion of “freedom of expression” within the meaning of Article 10 of the Convention. It follows that this complaint must be rejected as inadmissible ratione personae .

14 Having declared inadmissible the substantive complaint under Article 10 of the Convention, the Court concludes that the applicant company has no arguable claim for the purposes of Article 13 of the Convention (see Walter v. Italy (dec.), no. 18059/06, 11 July 2006). It follows that the complaint under Article 13 of the Convention must be rejected as being incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4.

15 As to the complaint under Article 14 of the Convention, the Court reiterates that this Article has no independent existence, since it has effect solely in relation to the rights and freedoms safeguarded by the other substantive provisions of the Convention and the Protocols thereto (see Thlimmenos v. Greece [GC], no. 34369/97, § 40, ECHR 2000 ‑ IV). Given that the complaint under Article 10 raised by the applicant company has already been found inadmissible by the Court, Article 14 of the Convention is not applicable in relation to that complaint. It follows that the applicant company’s complaints under Articles 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 10 must be rejected as incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Decides to join the applications;

Declares the applications inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 29 October 2026.

Martina Keller María Elósegui Deputy Registrar President