Facts
The complainant [A.] filed a criminal complaint with the Zurich-Limmat Public Prosecutor's Office on June 23, 2016, against unnamed journalists of [B.] for defamation, alternatively for slander. The complainant accuses the unknown perpetrator of having linked the report published on the [B.] online portal on June 20, 2016, with the title "More on the topic" to an article from January 26, 2001 ("New criminal proceedings against [A.] ") and an article from December 8, 2001 ("Nine months' imprisonment for animal rights activist [A.] "). The Public Prosecutor's Office did not initiate an investigation with its decision of October 25, 2016. The complaint filed by [A.] against this decision was dismissed by the High Court of the Canton of Zurich on March 27, 2017.
The complainant files a criminal appeal and requests that the decision of the High Court be set aside and the case be referred back to the Public Prosecutor's Office for the initiation of a criminal investigation.
Considerations
The Federal Court must examine whether the lower court rightly did not recognize the complainant as a private plaintiff and whether the non-prosecution of the criminal complaint by the Public Prosecutor's Office was lawful. The complainant constituted himself as a private plaintiff in the cantonal proceedings and claimed compensation of CHF 1,000.--. Based on the accusation of criminal behavior published on the [B.] online portal and the complainant's submissions on the severity of the alleged violation of personality, the appeal is admissible.
The lower court wrongly did not recognize the complainant as a private plaintiff, as the complainant has a legally protected interest in the annulment or amendment of the contested decision. The unlawful violation of personality can give rise to a claim for…