In Handyside v. The United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held that the right to freedom of expression, as provided for in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects not only expressions that are favorably received but also those that ‘offend, shock or disturb’. 1 Yet, the Court has since developed a substantial body of inconsistent case-law allowing restrictions on ‘hate speech’ that severely questions the degree to which offensive, shocking and disturbing speech is truly protected by the ECHR. Against a qualitative and quantitative backdrop, the authors argue that the Court and previously the Commission, have adopted an overly restrictive approach to hate speech, which fails to provide adequate protection to political speech on controversial issues, including criticism of public officials and government institutions and has created an inconsistent and even arbitrary body of case law. Instead, jurisdictions that recognize a need to balance the freedom of expression with limits on hate speech have adopted more convincing approaches of hate speech, providing a robust protection of free speech while leaving room for the State to curtail the most extreme forms of non-violent hate speech.

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仇恨言论和欧洲人权法院：冒犯、震惊或骚扰的权利发生了什么？

在 Handyside 诉联合王国案中，欧洲人权法院 (ECHR) 认为，《欧洲人权公约》第 10 条规定的言论自由权不仅保护受到好评的言论，而且还保护那些受到欢迎的言论。 '冒犯，震惊或打扰'。1 然而，自那以后，法院制定了大量不一致的判例法，允许限制“仇恨言论”，这严重质疑了《欧洲人权公约》真正保护冒犯性、令人震惊和令人不安的言论的程度。在定性和定量的背景下，作者辩称，法院和之前的委员会对仇恨言论采取了过于严格的方法，未能为有争议问题的政治言论提供足够的保护，包括对公职人员和政府机构的批评，并产生了不一致甚至武断的判例法体系。相反，承认需要平衡言论自由与限制仇恨言论的司法管辖区已采取更有说服力的仇恨言论方法，为言论自由提供强有力的保护，同时为国家限制最极端形式的非暴力行为留出空间仇恨言论。