(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – On 25 September 2001, the Supreme Court, Argentina’s highest tribunal, upheld a sentence against the daily “Noticias” for damages against former president Carlos Saúl Menem. The newspaper had reported on Menem’s extramarital affair with one of his party’s members. In 1994 and 1995 the magazine published two articles disclosing information about the former […]
(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – On 25 September 2001, the Supreme Court, Argentina’s highest tribunal, upheld a sentence against the daily “Noticias” for damages against former president Carlos Saúl Menem. The newspaper had reported on Menem’s extramarital affair with one of his party’s members.
In 1994 and 1995 the magazine published two articles disclosing information about the former president’s previous romantic involvement with a woman named Martha Meza. That affair resulted in the birth of a son that Menem refused to recognise as his own. “Noticias” also reported that when the affair ended, Meza was appointed provincial representative in Formosa and for a number of years received a monthly allowance from Menem, which was suspected of having been paid from public funds.
The former president filed a complaint against the magazine, accusing it of having violated his right to privacy. However, the magazine’s defence argued that the information was of interest to the public and succeeded in having the cour of first instance court dismiss the charge.
Menem appealed the decision and, in March 1998, Courtroom H of the Civil Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s ruling, sentencing “Noticias” to pay 150,000 pesos (US$150,000) in compensation for damages. The magazine appealed the ruling, but on 25 September the Supreme Court upheld the sentence, although the amount payable was reduced to 60,000 pesos.
Five of the Supreme Court’s nine judges felt that the magazine had inappropriately encroached on the former president’s private life. The judges understood that there was tension between freedom of expression and the protection of privacy, but failed to take into account the fact that recent legal precedents and principles established in international treaties come down in favour of freedom of expression. When individual concerns are in conflict with those of the society at large, the public interest is protected first and foremost.
Judge Augusto Belluscio, who voted against the magazine, noted that “even those who are in the public eye and whose private affairs are already exposed to public scrutiny have the right to conduct a part of their life in secrecy, something that is essential to us all.”
Half of the sentence outlined the decision of Judge Adolfo Vázquez, who chronicled the historical importance of freedom of expression in a constitutional society. Nevertheless, he concluded that one should not grant “journalism license to do whatever it pleases in violation of others’ rights.”
The magistrate felt that the validity of the information should not be taken into account, arguing that “showing that the text is accurate” does not excuse the magazine from its responsibility. He noted that the complaint against the magazine “is not based on inaccuracy but rather on the intimate nature of the information.” According to PERIODISTAS, by leaving the truthfulness of the information out of the analysis, the Court failed to appreciate that the details surrounding the private relationship in question were of clear general interest because there were strong indications that the former president had abused his influence.
PERIODISTAS condemned the sentence against “Noticias” as a “violation of the standards that the Constitution establishes as fundamental in our democratic system and in contradiction to international principles guaranteed by the American Convention on Human Rights and other agreements.”
International human rights organisations have been advancing freedom of expression principles and have condemned those states that continue to ignore them. “The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the sentence against “Noticias” is a step backwards for Argentina”, PERIODISTAS stated.
The Argentine press organisation announced that it “would support the Perfil Publishing Company in pursuing all possibilities of having this decision, which binds Argentina to the type of restrictions that have little to do with the free exercise of rights, repealed.”
