MOSCOW, July 10 (RAPSI, Oleg Panfilov) - The rights of one of the largest European media conglomerates, Axel Springer AG, were violated by Germany after several national courts prohibited the publication of an article criticizing actions of the German ex-Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held Thursday.

The Court found that Germany has violated Article 10 (Right to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights and ruled that Germany should pay 41,000 euros in damages to the applicant.

On December 9, 2005 Gerhard Schröder has been appointed as the Head of shareholders committee of the Northern-European gas transit consortium - Nord Way AG predominantly owned by the Russian company Gazprom. The Bild newspaper which is a part of the Axel Springer AG conglomerate has followed this appointment with an article published on December 12, 2005. In this article there were suggestions about the personal gain Schröder could receive from several Russian-German economic contracts signed during his term.

One of the article’s fragments read that Schröder could have organized the preliminary elections into the Bundestag in order to lose his position as a Chancellor so he could get a job in the Russian-German consortium. Schröder asked German courts to ban this specific fragment. The German courts ruled in Schröder’s favour and prohibited Axel Springer AG from further publishing ofthis fragment.

In May 2005 Social-Democratic Party of Germany supported by Federal Chancellor Schröder has lost the regional elections. This defeat followed by Schröder decision to organize preliminary nationwide elections into the German Parliament, Bundestag. Procedure of the preliminary elections requires Federal Chancellor to resign. On September 18, 2005 elections have been held and Schröder has lost his position. On September 8, 2005, ten days before the Bundestag elections, Russia and Germany have signed the final gas contract regarding the Nord Way transit system.