European Court of Human Rights says court order requiring press to disclose source of leaked documents infringes right to freedom of expression

Five news providers have won a long court battle to avoid having to provide access to leaked documents, something which would have revealed their sources. Previously, the High Court and Court of Appeal had ordered The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, The Independent and Reuters to release sensitive documents which had been leaked to those news providers about a possible corporate takeover of South African Breweries by Interbev in 2001. As a result of the news reports surrounding the then confidential talks, the share prices in the targeted and predatory companies had both been affected. One of the companies involved sought the documents in order to determine who had leaked the stories. Once they had exhausted the English legal process, the news providers then went to the European Court of Human Rights and argued that the disclosure orders would breach their rights to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court agreed with them. The ECHR said that protecting journalistic sources was one of the basic conditions for press freedom and without that protection sources may be deterred from coming forward and helping the press to fulfil their vital public watchdog role.