A woman who appears in the SVT documentary "Vaccinkrigarna" has sued the state after being rejected by the Chancellor of Justice and the Review Board.
The woman says she is being portrayed as anti-Semitic, and that she has lost her good reputation and career prospects. She says she has been deceived by the journalists posing as friends who agree with her vaccine-critical views, when in fact they filmed her, sometimes with a hidden camera, for a documentary about vaccine critics.
Now the district court gives the woman the right. The court considers that it is uncertain whether the self-regulating media system is sufficient for the state, according to the human rights of the European Convention on Human Rights, to have protected a woman's right to privacy.
Does not protect from hidden camera
"In summary, the district court considers that in Sweden there is a lack of sufficiently adequate and effective protection for (the woman's) privacy with regard to the interventions to which (she) has been subjected, namely the publication of material from recordings using a hidden camera as well as through the use of false identities and the deception in journalistic work," the district court wrote in its ruling.
At the same time, the district court notes that SVT's actions do not fall within the scope of the state's activities and that frameworks are in place that guarantee SVT's independence.
Receives SEK 100,000
The judgment, on the other hand, has made a distinction that, on the one hand, the state itself should not interfere with human rights, but that the state should at the same time take measures to protect the rights of individuals also in relation to other individuals.
In this case, according to the district court, the state has not done enough to protect the woman against SVT regarding the right to privacy.
The woman will therefore receive SEK 100,000 in damages. The state and the woman must pay their own legal costs in the dispute.