(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has condemned a 26 May 2006 Versailles appeal court ruling confirming that Dominique Issartel and Damien Ressiot of the daily “L’Equipe” should be formally placed under investigation for “helping to violate the confidentiality of a judicial investigation” into the use of banned drugs by a cycling team. The ruling is […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has condemned a 26 May 2006 Versailles appeal court ruling confirming that Dominique Issartel and Damien Ressiot of the daily “L’Equipe” should be formally placed under investigation for “helping to violate the confidentiality of a judicial investigation” into the use of banned drugs by a cycling team.
The ruling is inconsistent with justice minister Pascal Clément’s promise to amend the 1881 press law to give journalists the right to protect their sources, the press freedom organisation said.
“This confirms an unfortunate tendency on the part of the judicial authorities to abuse the concept of ‘helping to violate the confidentiality of a judicial investigation’ to prevent journalists from probing sensitive issues,” Reporters Without Borders said.
“Journalists, by definition, are not sworn to secrecy about anything including a judicial investigation, and it is absurd to make them the scapegoats for leaks,” the organisation said, adding that, “the appeal court’s decision is an aberration that bodes ill for the future of press freedom in France.”
Investigative reporting by Issartel and Ressiot about alleged doping within the Cofidis cycle team led the Nanterre prosecutor’s office to begin a judicial investigation in early 2004. On 22 January 2004, the weekly “Le Point” published the full transcripts of the telephone tapping that had been carried out on Cofidis trainers and riders named in the case.
Nanterre investigating judge Katherine Cornier formally placed Issartel, Ressiot and three “Le Point” journalists under investigation on 12 and 13 October 2005 for “helping to violate the confidentiality of a judicial investigation.” This move followed the searches carried out at the two newspapers and at the homes of the journalists on 13 January 2005, in which computer hard disks and notebooks were seized.
Lawyers acting for the “L’Equipe” journalists had requested the withdrawal of these investigations on the grounds that they “do not comply with the European Convention on Human Rights,” in particular article 10, which guarantees the right of journalists to protect their sources. Article 109 of the French criminal code recognises the same right, but France was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights in January 1999 for using the concept of ‘helping to violate the confidentiality of a judicial investigation’ against journalists.
