MIAMI, Florida (November 13, 2002) — Judges and journalists from El Salvador
and Costa Rica have agreed that libel committed in the news media should not be
a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment but should be dealt with in the
civil courts so as not to curtail press freedom and the people’s right to
know and to prevent self-censorship.
This and other conclusions emerged from national legal forums on press freedom
organized by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and held on Monday
and Tuesday this week in San Salvador, El Salvador, and San José, Costa
Rica, within the framework of the IAPA-sponsored Declaration of Chapultepec.
IAPA President Andrés García, who chaired both meetings, said
that the objective was to create a basis of understanding of the work that jurists
and journalists each do. “The working sessions were held in the spirit
that a free press and an independent judiciary are essential to one another
as a guarantee for democracy,” said García, of the Cancun, Mexico,
newspaper Novedades de Quintana Roo.
The success of the meetings was hailed by El Salvador Supreme Court Chief Justice
Agustín García Calderón, who declared that there had been
considerable progress in relationships between judges and journalists, adding
that “10 years ago it was unthinkable for them to sit down together at
the same table.”
Costa Rica Supreme Court Chief Justice Luis Paulino Mora Mora said that there
is a new spirit of collaboration on the part of the judiciary with the press
and he gave as an example the fact that his Court has modernized its system
of access to court records by creating a Web site on which is posted up-to-date
information on legal proceedings.
The two justices had earlier also participated in the Hemisphere Summit on
Justice and Freedom of the Press that the IAPA held in Washington, DC, in June
this year.
During the Central American meetings the panel discussions that produced most
debate and dialogue were those dealing with offenses against good name. While
there were opposing views on the role of the press on respecting a person’s
good name and privacy, there was agreement that libel should not be a criminal
offense punishable by imprisonment of journalists when it is committed in the
press.
A number of experts referred to how the law views certain offenses, attenuating
circumstances and liabilities when the information at issue is not published
with intent to offend or to the differing treatments when the information is
true or false.
What emerged was that journalists should not be subject to trial under special
laws nor should be granted any special privilege, but should be dealt with under
the general laws. In that regard, Argentina constitutionalist lawyer Gregorio
Badeni referred to the case law in his country on freedom of the press, making
particular mention of the doctrine of “actual malice” and the “Campillay
Doctrine,” explaining that the Argentine Congress is currently debating
a bill to decriminalize libel.
Rafael Molina, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press
and Information, said that “while it is legislators who should amend the
penal codes so as to decriminalize libel, it is also true that judges must set
case law favorable to freedom of the press and free speech and eschewing privation
of liberty.”
Molina, editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, news magazine Ahora,
added that what is needed is greater access to court records and a greater respect
by the press for the work of judges.
In addition to García, Molina and Badeni, the IAPA delegation was made
up of Executive Director Julio E. Muñoz, Press Freedom Coordinator Ricardo
Trotti, Chapultepec Lawyer Jairo Lanao and Project Administrator Sean Casey.
In another aspect concerning press freedom, the IAPA delegation met with the
foreign ministers of El Salvador, María Eugenia Brizuela de Avila, and
Costa Rica, Roberto Tovar, to express to them their concern about a number of
press freedom and free speech issues currently being discussed at the international
level.
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