(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – After more than seven years of legal proceedings, journalist Alejandro Cordoba is expecting a ruling in a case for “moral damage” filed against him by a judge in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires province. Magistrate Marcelo Soukop was offended by the contents of an article published in the local daily “La Union”. In […]
(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – After more than seven years of legal proceedings, journalist Alejandro Cordoba is expecting a ruling in a case for “moral damage” filed against him by a judge in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires province. Magistrate Marcelo Soukop was offended by the contents of an article published in the local daily “La Union”. In the article, the mother of a youth allegedly assassinated by the police condemned the judge for not having properly investigated a series of irregularities in the examination of her son’s body.
On 29 May 1994, Sergio Schiavini died in a Lomas de Zamora bar during a shoot out between four delinquents and about 40 police officers. His mother alleged that irregularities in the autopsies and official investigation hid the fact that her son was killed as the result of being accidentally shot by the police.
Magistrate Soukop presided over the first instance court and was responsible for overseeing the medics who carried out the first autopsy. Even though he warned them about deficiencies in their expert evaluation, he stayed a case against them for “false testimony, hiding evidence and falsifying a public document”. Subsequently, in a 17 October 1994 article published in “La Union”, María Teresa Schiavini announced that she would call for a political trial against Soukop.
The article in question was written by Cordoba and included the woman’s criticisms of the judge Soukop in quotes. In a sidebar, the journalist mentioned a prior incident involving the judge, which was subsequently discovered to be in error. Cordoba had obtained the information from a source in the courts and did not reference it, therefore it appeared as though it was Cordoba’s statement.
Soon after the article was published, the daily began to receive comments from lawyers and magistrates in Lomas de Zamora who supported Soukop. The daily’s owners decided to suspend Cordoba for two days. They argued that the newspaper’s lawyer had made some corrections to the article before it was published but that the journalist and his supervisor Oscar Padron, head of the daily’s section on police matters, had ignored the edits. Cordoba denied this as an attempt by the daily’s owners to absolve themselves of any responsibility.
Soukop filed a civil action demanding 250,000 pesos (approx. US$65,703) against Schiavini, the daily and the journalist. The trial began on 10 April 2002. PERIODISTAS expressed its concern over the possible violation of constitutional rights and obligations that Argentina assumed by becoming a signatory to international treaties. The organisation recalled that according to the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, public officials – in this case a magistrate – are subject to greater scrutiny by society and such scrutiny should not be subject to any limitation.
PERIODISTAS noted that according to the declaration’s tenth principle, “civil sanctions should be applied only if it is proven that in disseminating the news, the social communicator had the specific intent to inflict harm, was fully aware that false news was disseminated, or acted with gross negligence in efforts to determine the truth or falsity of such news”. None of these elements has been proven in this case, the organisation argued.
Recommended Action
Send letters of support to Alejandro Cordoba:
Tel: +4292 9063
E-mail: alejandrocordova@infovia.com.ar
