HomeInsightsEuropean Court of Human Rights finds Lithuanian courts’ decision that clothing company’s advertisements referring to “Jesus” and “Mary” were offensive, breached Article 10

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The case concerned the imposition of a fine on Sekmadienis Ltd, a clothing company, for displaying in Vilnius and on its website a series of advertisements deemed by the Lithuanian courts and other bodies to offend against public morals. The advertisements had used models and captions referring to “Jesus” and “Mary”.

The ECtHR found that, despite having triggered a number of complaints (including via the territorial authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania), the advertisements were not gratuitously offensive, and did not incite hatred. Nor had the domestic authorities provided sufficient justifications for why such use of religious symbols had been contrary to public morals.

Accordingly, the domestic authorities had failed to strike a fair balance between, on the one hand, the protection of public morals and the rights of religious people, and, on the other hand, the applicant company’s right to freedom of expression. (Sekmadienis Ltd v Lithuania (application no. 69317/14) (30 January 2018) — to read the judgment in full, click here.

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