Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 173
April 2014
Jelševar and Others v. Slovenia (dec.) - 47318/07
Decision 11.3.2014 [Section V]
Article 8
Article 8-1
Respect for family life
Respect for private life
Alleged breach of personality rights through depiction of applicants’ mother as a character in a novel: inadmissible
Facts – A writer published a novel based on the life of a woman in whom the applicants recognised their late mother. They sued the writer for breach of personality rights, referring to certain passages in the book which they considered offensive to her memory. Before the domestic courts, several neighbours, friends and acquaintances testified that they had easily made the connection between the story and the applicants’ family. The Constitutional Court ultimately dismissed the applicants’ claims, stating that the average reader would not consider the events narrated in the book as facts about real people. Furthermore, the descriptions of the applicants’ mother were not in any way derogatory, and it had not been the intention of the author to cause offence.
Law – Article 8: At the outset the Court underlined that a novel was a form of artistic expression protected by Article 10 of th
