MOSCOW, September 19 (RAPSI, Ingrid Burke) - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held Thursday that Germany did not violate the rights of Monaco's Princess Caroline von Hannover to respect for private and family life by refusing to enjoin the further publication of a photograph of the royal couple on vacation.

Princess Caroline was born in 1957 to Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace (nee Grace Kelly) of Monaco.

In 2002, German gossip magazine 7 Tage published a photograph of the princess and her husband on vacation in an unidentifiable location. That photograph was followed by a series of pictures of the family's vacation home off the coast of Kenya, and an article describing an emerging trend among celebrities to rent out their vacation homes. The piece went on to provide information on the costs and amenities available to those seeking to rent the von Hannover family villa.

Princess Caroline turned to the German courts in 2004, hoping to enjoin the continued publication of the photograph. While her application was initially granted, the ruling was overturned on appeal owing to press freedom concerns.

The Federal Court of Justice then set aside the appeals court's judgment, finding that the latter had failed to correspond to the relevant legal analysis. In February 2008, the Federal Constitutional Court then quashed the Federal Court of Justice judgment.

In remitting the case, the Constitutional Court emphasized the ECHR case law relating to the balance between the European Convention of Human Rights' (Convention) guarantees of the rights both to respect for private and family life and to the freedom of expression. It further referenced its own case law on the competing fundamental rights at issue.

Several months later, in July 2008, the Federal Court of Justice dismissed the princess' appeal, finding that she was a public figure, and that - according to the ECHR statement released Thursday, "the freedom of expression of the magazine's publishers should not be overridden by the applicant's right to respect for her private life."
The following year, the Federal Court of Justice refrained from considering a constitutional appeal.

Princess Caroline then turned to the ECHR in February 2010, raising her rights under the Convention's Article 8 protection of private and family life in complaining of the German courts' refusal to enjoin any further publication of the photograph.

According to the ECHR statement, the criteria to consider weighing the rights to respect for private life and to free expression are those of: "contribution to a debate of general interest, how well known the person concerned was, the subject of the report, the prior conduct of the person concerned, the content, form and consequences of the publication and, in the case of photographs, the circumstances in which they were taken."

The ECHR focused on the German courts' analyses, finding that they had taken into consideration the essential criteria as well as ECHR case law in balancing the competing interests. Thus, no violation of Article 8 was found.