Tribune de Genève shares responsibility for blogs
Online newspapers that offer their readers space for their own blog can also be held liable for posts that violate personal rights. The Federal Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the Tribune de Genève (TDG).
On the TDG website anyone can open their own blog. Politician Eric Stauffer from the right-wing Mouvement Citoyens Genevois also made use of this option. In one of his posts, he attacked an ex-director of the Cantonal Bank of Geneva. Following his lawsuit against Stauffer and the TDG, the Geneva courts came to the conclusion that the article violated the personality of the person concerned. It ordered the defendants to delete the controversial article and ordered them to pay CHF 6,000 for the injured party's legal fees.
No special regulation in Switzerland
The Federal Supreme Court has now dismissed the appeal by the newspaper TDG. The newspaper had argued that in other countries the civil liability of the host of a blog is limited or even excluded. According to the Federal Supreme Court, there is no corresponding regulation in Switzerland. The standards on the protection of personality rights in the Civil Code are therefore applicable. According to this, anyone who has contributed to a violation of personality rights can be prosecuted. The obligation to remove unlawful blog entries therefore applies not only to the author but also to those who offer the corresponding opportunities.
This also includes any costs incurred in the event of a legal dispute. According to the judges in Lausanne, the question of the obligation to pay compensation or satisfaction is a different matter. This requires wrongful conduct, which was not at issue in the TDG case. (SDA/judgment 5A_792/2011 of January 14, 2013)
