23. The applicant was found guilty as charged and sentenced to one and a half years' correctional work, with retention of fifteen percent of her wages for the benefit of the State.
24. On 4 September 2002 the Sverdlovsk Regional Court upheld the conviction, endorsing the reasons given by the trial court.
25. Subsequently, the applicant was dispensed from serving her sentence on the basis of an amnesty act in respect of women and minors passed by the Russian legislature on 30 November 2001.
II. Relevant domestic law
26. Article 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees freedom of ideas and expression as well as freedom of the mass media.
27. Article 129 § 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation defines criminal libel as dissemination of information known to be untrue that damages the honour and dignity of another person or undermines the person's reputation. Article 129 § 2 provides that criminal libel disseminated in a public statement, a publicly displayed work of art or the mass media is punishable by a fine and/or correctional work for a period of up to two years.
28. Article 130 § 1 of the Criminal Code defines criminal insult as undermining the honour and dignity of the victim in an obscene manner. Article 130 § 2 provides that criminal libel disseminated in a public statement, a publicly displayed work of art or the mass media is punishable by a fine and/or correctional work for a period of up to one year.
29. Article 137 of the Criminal Code establishes that it is a criminal offence to collect or disseminate information about an individual's private life without his consent or to make such information public through the media.
30. Article 18 of the RSFSR Code of Criminal Procedure (in force at the material time) established that a trial could be conducted in private, in particular with a view to preventing information about intimate aspects of the parties' lives from being disclosed.
THE LAW
I. Alleged violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention
31. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the trial in her case had not been public. The relevant part of Article 6 provides as follows:
"1. In the determination of... any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a... public hearing... by a... tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interests of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice."
32. The Government submitted that the decision to conduct the trial in private had been compatible with the requirements of domestic law and necessary in the circumstances of the case.
33. The Court observes that Article 6 § 1 of the Convention provides for the possibility of excluding the press and public from a trial, in particular, "where the interests... of the protection of the private life of the parties so require". Russian law contained a similar provision: Article 18 of the RSFSR Code of Criminal Procedure provided that hearings in private might be necessary to prevent disclosure of information on "intimate aspects of the parties' lives".
34. It is undisputed that the existence of a sexual relationship between the victims was the key element of the applicant's allegations to be examined at trial. Since it has been the Court's consistent approach to consider sexual relationships as the most intimate aspect of an individual's private life (see, for example, L
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