Background
On August 31, 2020, a commentator named M. [Q] made statements targeting Mme [A] during the television program “Face à l’info,” broadcast live on channel [1] and simultaneously published on its website. Mme [A] brought criminal and civil proceedings for public defamation against a private individual, naming both M. [Q] as the author of the statements and M. [W], the director of publication of channel [1] and its website, in his capacity as the legally designated responsible publisher. The company [1] was joined as a civilly liable party.
In a judgment of February 7, 2024, the criminal court of first instance acquitted the defendants in part and convicted them for the remaining statements, imposing penalties and civil damages. Both sides appealed. The Paris Court of Appeal (chamber 2-7), by judgment of January 30, 2025, convicted M. [W] for public defamation against a private individual, sentenced him to a suspended fine of €1,000, and ruled on civil compensation for Mme [A].
M. [W] then brought a cassation petition before the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, arguing in the third branch of his plea that, as a business head who did not personally participate in the commission of the offense, he should have been permitted to exonerate himself by proving that he had validly delegated his editorial oversight powers to M. [L], the channel’s programming director, who allegedly possessed the necessary competence, authority, and means to exercise editorial control in his place. He argued the court of appeal violated the presumption of innocence (Article 6 §2 ECHR) and the principle of personal criminal responsibility (Article 121-1 of the Criminal Code) by refusing to consider that defense.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Cassation rejected the petition in its entirety. While acknowledging the general principle—established in its own jurisprudence since 1993—that a business head who did not personally participate in an offense may avoid criminal liability by proving a valid delegation of powers to a suitably qualified person, the Court held that this general rule does not apply in the domain of audiovisual press offenses. Under Article 93-3 of the Law of July 29, 1982 on audiovisual communication, the director of publication of a television channel that broadcasts a pre-recorded program containing defamatory content bears strict liability (responsabilité de plein droit) by reason of the duty of supervision inherent in that office. The court of appeal was therefore not required to examine whether the programming director possessed the competence and authority to substitute for M. [W].
The Court further held that the only statutory derogation from this strict liability regime is the narrow exception in Article 93-2 of the same law: where the director of publication enjoys parliamentary immunity, that person must designate a co-director of publication. No other escape route—including a private internal delegation of powers—is available. The Court also rejected the constitutional and Convention-based objections, finding no violation of the presumption of innocence: the director of publication may still rebut liability by demonstrating that the author of the contested statements acted in good faith, or—in the audiovisual context—that the program was not pre-recorded before broadcast. Neither avenue was successfully invoked here. M. [W] was ordered to pay Mme [A] an additional €2,500 under Article 618-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The Court confirmed that M. [W]’s status as director of publication was established beyond dispute: the legal notices on channel [1]’s own website identified him as the manager of the company providing the audiovisual public communication services. That designation was sufficient to ground his strict liability without any need to probe the internal governance arrangements of the channel.
Key Takeaways
- The strict liability of the director of publication under Article 93-3 of the 1982 Audiovisual Communication Law cannot be circumvented by an internal delegation of editorial powers, even to a well-qualified deputy — the general corporate-law delegation defense is unavailable in this specialized regime.
- The only statutory exception to this strict liability applies solely where the director of publication holds parliamentary immunity and formally designates a co-director of publication under Article 93-2 of the same law.
- A director of publication may still avoid conviction by establishing the good faith of the author of the defamatory statements, or by showing that the contested content was not pre-recorded prior to broadcast — but an absence of personal involvement in drafting or approving the content is not itself exonerating.
- The strict liability scheme does not violate the presumption of innocence (Article 6 §2 ECHR) or the principle of personal criminal responsibility (Article 121-1 Criminal Code), because the director of publication accepts this specific legal burden upon voluntarily assuming that office at an organization with public broadcast access.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies and reinforces a point of significant practical importance for the management of French television channels and online audiovisual services: whoever accepts the title of “director of publication” (directeur de la publication) under French press and audiovisual law assumes personal, non-delegable strict criminal liability for broadcast content. No organizational chart, internal compliance structure, or contractual allocation of editorial responsibility can shield that person from prosecution for press offenses committed in pre-recorded programming. Media companies must therefore ensure that the individual formally designated as director of publication has genuine, active capacity to exercise editorial oversight — because that designation is legally irreversible in its liability consequences.
The ruling also draws a clear boundary between the general criminal law principle of delegation of powers (a defense well established in labor safety and corporate governance contexts since the Court’s landmark 1993 ruling) and the lex specialis of French press law, where strict liability is a deliberate legislative choice designed to protect victims of defamation by giving them a readily identifiable, solvent defendant reachable within the notoriously short three-month limitation period applicable to press offenses. Courts applying this framework need not investigate internal delegation arrangements, which significantly simplifies the evidentiary burden on defamation plaintiffs.