Reporting on children of prominent figures?

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) had to decide whether the press may name the children of a prominent person and their relationship to the prominent figure in the course of their reporting, or whether this violates the child's right to informational self-determination.

In the underlying case, the magazine "Frau im Spiegel" had published a report on the well-known television presenter Günther J. with the title "Gefragt wie ein Popstar" about an appearance at Goethe University in Frankfurt a.M. In this article, the daughter of the prominent figure was mentioned by her full name, her age and her kinship relationship to Günther J. This information had previously been published several times in the course of various press reports.

The television presenter's daughter, who was twelve years old at the time of publication, now wanted to prohibit the publisher from reporting that she was a child of the television presenter.

Decision of the Court

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) dismissed the lawsuit of Günther J.'s daughter withjudgment of 29.04.2014 – Az. VI ZR 137/13– dismissed.

The BGH confirmed that the minor was indeed impaired in hergeneral personality rightby the disclosure of her first name, her age and the kinship relationship existing between her and the television presenter. Within the scope of informational self-determination, every person may in principle decide for themselves whether, when and within what limits personal circumstances of life are disclosed.

However, in this case, this impairment of informational self-determination did not constitute a violation of the minor's personality rights, as the publisher's right to freedom of opinion and media freedom outweighed the child's interest in protection of her personality. The deciding factor for this decision was that the plaintiff's name and age as well as the kinship relationship to the television presenter had already been known to a large number of persons prior to publication by the defendant and had been published multiple times. The reported matter in the magazine "Frau im Spiegel" had added nothing new to what was already known and therefore had no independent violation content. Also, with regard to the short period of time that lay between the last publications and the disputed reporting, the child had not yet regained her anonymity.

Conclusion

In many cases, it can be of decisive importance to pursuereporting that violates personality rightswithout delay. As in the present case, where the name, age and family circumstances of a prominent person's child were already known through previous reporting, any further reporting of these facts does not constitute a violation of personality rights.