European Court of Human Rights, Case Allée v. France

The European Court of Human Rights has delivered an important judgment concerning the treatment of harassment allegations made by employees (see press release). An applicant who was employed as a secretary by a non-profit association believed that she was the victim of harassment by her employer, and asked the employer’s son, who was the association’s spiritual director, for a transfer to another position, on account of his father’s behaviour. The managing director then suggested that she take sick leave until such time as her contract could be terminated. She then sent an email to the association’s managing director, with the subject line “sexual assault, sexual and mental harassment”, reporting what she had experienced, and copied it to five people: her husband, her employer, the spiritual director, another of the employer’s sons and the State Labour Inspector. As a result of this email, she was found guilty of public defamation, for failing to provide evidence of sexual assault. This conviction was confirmed by the Court of Cassation (the French Supreme Court). The Court emphasises the need, in light of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (freedom of expression), for anyone who believes they are the victim of mental or sexual harassment, to be given appropriate protection. The EctHR holds that the domestic courts (…) had placed an excessive burden of proof on the applicant, by requiring that she provide evidence of the acts that she wished to report. The Court notes that the email sent by the applicant had had only a minor impact on her alleged harasser’s reputation, but the financial penalty imposed on her, in connection with a criminal conviction, was likely to discourage people from reporting such serious actions as those amounting, in their view, to mental or sexual harassment, or even sexual assault.