European Court of Human Rights: : Kalda v. Estonia

• Autores: Dirk Voorhoof
• Localización: IRIS: Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory, ISSN-e 1023-8565, Nº. 4, 2016
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • For the first time the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has stated that denying a prisoner access to the Internet may amount to a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). In Estonia, Mr Kalda, who is serving a life sentence in prison, requested from the governor of the prison access to the online version of the State Gazette, to the decisions of the Supreme Court and administrative courts, and to the HUDOC database of the ECtHR. The governor refused this request, and so did the Administrative Court and the Tallinn Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court, however, decided that the refusal of the prison administration to grant detainees access to the rulings of the administrative courts and of the ECtHR interfered with their right to freely obtain information disseminated for public use, and considered the refusal unlawful. Some time later, Mr Kalda made a new application, requesting to be granted access to the Internet sites www.coe.ee of the Council of Europe Information Office in Tallinn, www.oiguskantsler.ee, the website of the Chancellor of Justice and www.riigikogu.ee, the website of the Estonian Parliament. He argued that he was involved in a number of legal disputes with the prison administration and that he needed access to those Internet sites in order to be able to defend his rights in court. Again Mr Kalda’s request was refused. The Supreme Court this time concluded that the prohibition of detainees’ access to the three Internet sites at issue was justified by the need to achieve the aims of imprisonment and in particular the need to secure public safety. Mr Kalda lodged an application with the ECtHR, complaining that the Estonian authorities’ refusal to grant him access to certain websites violated his right to receive information “without interference by public authority”, in breach of Article 10 of the ECHR.