Combatting terrorist speech in the European Union and the freedom of expression – conclusions from the case-law of the ECtHR

Terrorism is currently one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. For this reason, the international community has decided to combat it in a multilayer way. It does not only fight against terrorist acts, but also against the so called precursor crimes. The European Union, within its competence, participates in these actions. On its part the EU obliged its Member States to penalise terrorist speech on one hand, on the other it introduced an obligation to remove terrorist content posted online. Both these solutions constitute interference in the freedom of expression and can lead to abuses if applied incorrectly. The article analyses this aspect by an attempt to delineate limits of the prohibited terrorist content. To this aim, EU regulations are examined from the perspective of the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights, as at this moment there is no case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on this matter. The research findings suggest that these restrictions form a legitimate limitation of the freedom of speech. In order to appropriately identify terrorist content, not only do its author, recipient, text proper and context have to be taken into consideration jointly, but such overall analysis should lead to a conclusion that a specific message may lead to commission of one of terrorist offences, although this does not have to occur immediately. The law of the European Union on combatting terrorist speech is fully compatible with these rules.