The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomed the announcement by Colombia’s Supreme Court that it would not pursue criminal defamation charges against two journalists who had written opinion columns critical of the Court.
In a statement released yesterday, the Court reiterated its rejection of the criticism contained in the columns, but said “for the sake of contributing to a climate of deliberation and moderation” it would drop its case against Cecilia Orozco Tascón and María Jimena Duzán. The Court also took the opportunity to remind journalists of what it called their “social responsibility” and declared that there “does not exist a fundamental right to defamation.”
Tascón, of El Espectador, and Duzán, of Semana, had published separate columns over the last two weeks assailing the Court’s integrity after an internationally respected judge, Iván Velásquez, was removed from the chairmanship of a judicial commission investigating links between politicans and organised crime.
Calling the pair’s insinuations that the justices were protecting criminals “tendentious” and “unfounded”, the Court had issued a harshly worded retort last Thursday, condemning what it referred to as unethical journalism driven by “speculation and delirium”. The statement had added that, given the “seriousness” of the perceived offence, the Court would pursue libel and slander charges against both columnists.
IPI Deputy Director Anthony Mills said: “The Colombian Supreme Court has made the correct choice not to pursue defamation charges in this case, but we want to make it clear that the threat of criminal charges never should have been on the table. Journalists in a democratic country have the right to criticise and question the actions of their government. Colombia’s highest judicial body, which should be setting a model for the rest of the country by protecting the rights of the media, has instead been spending its time bullying journalists who did nothing but express their opinion.”
The controversy dates back to the Court’s Aug. 15 removal of Velásquez, who received the International Bar Association’s (IBA) Human Rights Award in 2011 for his “justice and his courage working on parliamentary transparency and organised crime”. Given the nature of his work, Velásquez has earned his share of enemies; he described several plots to remove him from office in an interview with IBA.
However, according to Orozco and Duzán, it was Velasquez’s own colleagues who achieved his ouster. In her column entitled “Tribute to a brave and proper judge,” Orzco wrote that fellow justices – the majority of whom she labeled “clientelist, bureaucratic, lethargic, and subordinate to the power of the attorney general” – reshuffled Velásquez because they “cannot have a witness to their complicity”. Tascón, in “The new court” called Velasquez’s removal the latest step in a “perverse” judicial reform process “designed to shield congressmen from scandals.” (For its part, the Court has claimed that the position of commission chairperson was designed to be a rotating one, although Colombia media have pointed out that this intention had never been observed until now.)
In response to the Court’s announcement, El Espectador editor-in-chief Fidel Cano had told AFP, “It’s an absurdity that a high court doesn’t respect an opinion just because it doesn’t agree.” Semana’s editor, Alejandro Santos, had called the Court’s attitude “disgraceful,” AFP reported.
Andrés Morales, director of the Colombian Press Freedom Foundation (FLIP) had warned that the Supreme Court’s action could set a “grave precedent” in Colombia, allowing “other public officials to feel capable of taking legal action against journalists.” The Court, he noted last week, “whose duty it is to safeguard rights is now attacking one of the greatest pillars of democracy, which is to express one’s opinion freely.”
Mills added: “IPI opposes all criminal defamation laws, but even civil defamation laws, when properly applied, are meant to protect the reputations of individuals, not to shield state institutions from criticism. When journalists avoid writing about their own governments for fear of criminal penalties, democracy and the free flow of information are endangered.”
In February of this year, a Colombian provincial court upheld a lower court’s ruling that sentenced journalist Luis Agustin Gonzalez to 20 months in prison for libel after publishing an article critical of a former governor and senator.
IPI is one of the world’s leading voices calling for the abolition of criminal defamation laws. In June, IPI began its campaign to end criminal libel in the Caribbean with visits to Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, all of which indicated their openness to reworking existing legislation.
That same month, the IPI General Assembly endorsed the Declaration of Port of Spain, which calls for governments throughout the Caribbean to repeal criminal defamation and insult laws.
