Social Media, Fundamental Rights and Courts A European Perspective Routledge Research in Human Rights Law Series

This volume examines European and national higher-court decisions on social media from the perspective of fundamental rights and judicial dialogue.

While the challenges social media poses for public policy and regulation have been widely discussed, the role of courts in this evolving legal area, especially from a fundamental-rights standpoint, has hitherto remained largely underexplored. This volume probes the contribution of national and European judiciaries to the protection of fundamental rights in a social media setting and delves into patterns of dialogue and interaction between domestic courts, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and between the CJEU and the ECtHR. The book specifically examines the extent and ways in which national and European judges incorporate fundamental rights reasoning in their social media rulings. It also investigates the nature and breadth of the use of European supranational case law in domestic judicial assessment and analyses the engagement of the CJEU and the ECtHR with the other?s case law. In doing so, the book instils jurisprudential dynamics into the study of social media law and regulation, exploring in particular the effects of European constitutionalism on the shaping and enforcement of fundamental rights in a social media context.

Written by emerging and established experts in the field, this book will be essential reading for scholars of comparative, European and constitutional law, as well as those with a particular interest in digital technologies and social media.

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

1 Social media before domestic and European courts: fundamental rights and judicial dialogue

EVANGELIA PSYCHOGIOPOULOU AND FEDERICA CASAROSA

PART 1

The European perspective

2 The CJEU as a fundamental rights adjudicator in social media cases

EVANGELIA PSYCHOGIOPOULOU

3 Social media jurisprudence: the European Court of Human Rights

LORNA WOODS

PART 2

The national perspective

4 Social media before higher courts in Estonia: Delfi says it all

MEELI KAUR

5 A rights-based approach to social media under the midnight sun: social media before courts and other constitutional actors in Finland

MARTA MARONI, TUOMAS OJANEN AND EVELIINA IGNATIUS

6 Judicial dialogue à la Française: social media and fundamental rights in the French higher courts

SARA MIGLIORINI AND CONSTANCE BONZE

7 Social media before German courts: balancing societal values, platform rules and individual rights

MATTHIAS C. KETTEMANN, POLINA KULISH AND MARTHA ROUTEN

8 Social media before higher courts in Hungary: a focus on online comments

ZSUZSA DETREKOI

9 Social media, fundamental rights and courts: an Irish perspective

ELIZABETH FARRIES

10 Social media before higher courts in Italy: a thorough adaptation of existing rules and protection of constitutional rights online

FEDERICA CASAROSA AND MARIA CONCETTA CAUSARANO

11 Social media before higher courts in Slovenia: judicial caution in imposing restrictions

TANJA KERŠEVAN

12 Social media before higher courts in Spain: judicial dialogue on innovative and difficult cases and the resolution of disagreements between courts

JOAN SOLANES MULLOR

13 Social media, the European Court of Human Rights and apex courts in the United Kingdom: contested competence at a time of constitutional change

RACHAEL CRAUFURD SMITH

14 Courts, rights and powers in the digital age

GIOVANNI DE GREGORIO AND ORESTE POLLICINO

Index

Federica Casarosa is Research Affiliate at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA), Italy and Professor at the Centre for Judicial Cooperation, European University Institute (EUI), Italy.

Evangelia Psychogiopoulou is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Peloponnese and Senior Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, Greece.