The plaintiff is a well-known actor and presenter. The defendant reported in its newspaper “Bild”, under the headline “Here Karsten Speck Strolls into Freedom”, that the plaintiff, who had been sentenced to a prison term of 2 years and 10 months, had already left the correctional facility for one day two weeks after commencing his sentence. He had proven suitable for serving his sentence in open prison. The article is illustrated with two photographs showing the plaintiff walking on the street and getting into a car, taken in the described situation. The plaintiff seeks an injunction against the renewed publication of the images.
The Regional Court granted the claim. Upon the defendant's appeal, the Higher Regional Court dismissed the claim, on the grounds that the photographs were images from contemporary history and that the plaintiff's legitimate interests were not violated by their publication.
The VI Civil Senate of the Federal Court of Justice, responsible for, among other things, press law (here: the right to one's own image), ultimately upheld this judgment. While the publication of the images constituted a significant infringement of the plaintiff's personal rights, as his misconduct had been publicly disclosed once again, as a result of the necessary balancing of the plaintiff's rights against the defendant's freedom of the press, the plaintiff's personal rights had to yield. The public's interest in information, protected by freedom of the press, appeared to be more significant. The article, whose content was not disputed by the plaintiff, specifically raised the question of whether the plaintiff, as a celebrity, received preferential treatment in prison; the press was fulfilling its important function as a “public watchdog” in this instance. There was no legitimate interest on the part of the plaintiff to prevent the publication of the photos nonetheless. For example, the publication had not hindered the plaintiff's resocialization, nor had he been unreasonably harassed by the taking of the pictures.
Judgment of the Federal Court of Justice of October 28, 2008 – VI ZR 307/07
Lower Courts: Regional Court Berlin – 27 O 1035/06 – Decision of January 23, 2007 Higher Regional Court Berlin – 9 U 21/07 – Decision of December 4, 2007
Source: Press release of the Press Office of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) No. 198/2008 of October 28, 2008
© Goldberg Attorneys at Law, Wuppertal-Solingen 2008
Attorney at Law Michael Ullrich, LL.M.(Information Law)
m.ullrich@goldberg.de
