EIRP Proceedings, Vol 2 (2007)

Abstract

The right to private life and the right to freedom of expression, both of them fundamental rights
guaranteed by the Convention, often come in conflict. It must be pointed out that both of them belong to that
category of conditional rights and, consequently, they can undergo certain unwarrantable interferences.
Analyzing the Convention’s provisions, we reach the conclusion that these rights, besides the fact that
they are neither absolute, nor ranked among them, so much the less in the sense of the preeminence of the
freedom of expression over the right to private life. When we talk about the interference between the right to
private life and the right to freedom of expression, as shown by most cases of the Court, we think of the situation
in which the right to private life is encroached upon by another individual who, in his turn, pleads his right to
freedom of expression. Thus, in such a conflict, there is an ordinary person and another person who is most
often than not a reporter, editor, TV journalist, or works in any other mass-media field. But, it has to be
mentioned that other situations can be met and these are to be presented in the paper.