European court rules on protection of sources

"The decision reaffirms a continent-wide commitment to press freedom and guarantees the media¹s fundamental right to confidentiality, and has halted the erosion of source protection," the organisations said in a statement.

Strengthening freedom of the press

"The court has significantly strengthened journalists¹ ability to gather and report information of public interest. This whole saga only reinforces the crucial need to keep a watchful eye on the press freedom situation even in countries where the press can operate freely," the statement said.

The Grand Chamber overturned a 2009 decision by the Third Section of the European Court that had condoned interference with journalistic sources without prior judicial scrutiny.

Appealing initial ruling

The initial ruling came in March 2009 in the case of Sanoma v. the Netherlands, in which the Finnish-owned Dutch magazine publisher was forced to hand a CD containing photographs to police. No warrant was issued, and police applied serious pressure to the magazine publishers including, briefly, arresting the editor-in-chief. The lower court had ruled that there had been "no violation", prompting Sanoma to appeal the case to the Grand Chamber.

The Chamber ruled that it was not up to the police or public prosecutors to compel journalists to reveal their sources.

Several organisations - the Media Legal Defence Initiative, Article 19, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Guardian News and Media Limited, and the Open Society Justice Initiative - intervened jointly in the lawsuit, with support from ENPA, WAN-IFRA, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Index on Censorship, Condé Nast Publications, Hearst Corporation, the National Geographic Society, the New York Times Company, La Repubblica, Reuters, Time Inc., and the Washington Post Company.