PGR questions European Court judge about “fines” for journalists who violate judicial secrecy (but receives negative response)

The Attorney General of the Republic, Amadeu Guerra, questioned this Thursday at a conference how to make the right to information compatible with secrecy and the right to justice and said that news about investigations sometimes “clearly harms” the investigation.

Amadeu Guerra asked the question at the conference “Construction of Democracy and Constitutional Justice”, which takes place in Lisbon, addressing the Portuguese judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Ana Maria Guerra Martins, former judge of the Constitutional Court, who participated in the session with the theme “Freedom(s)”, at the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, as part of the official commemorations of the 50th anniversary of April 25, 1974.

“We know that the European Court of Human Rights has accepted, and I also believe that yes, that we will not go after journalists for violating” judicial secrecy in these situations, said Amadeu Guerra.

“But there are, I don’t know if there are already decisions in the European Court of Human Rights, particularly about countries, for example in the United Kingdom, that establish sanctions, fines in situations like this, which have a different regime from ours”, he added.

In her response, judge Ana Maria Guerra Martins argued that “there is no chance” of punishment being considered for journalists who violate judicial secrecy when the case “has been in the newspapers for a long time”, this being the “most frequent” situation.

Journalists, he said, have many rights, they are the watchdogs [cães de guarda] of democracy, but they also have duties and duties imply that they comply with the law and, therefore, violating the secrecy of justice is illegal”.

“The problem is that, often, when the journalist violates the judicial secrecy, the judicial secrecy has already been in the newspapers for a long time and, when this happens, the journalist naturally has the right to freedom of expression”, he said.

“There is no chance here of considering that any punishments for the journalist are in accordance with the Convention[EuropeanonHumanRightsThisisthemostfrequentcaseinfact”hesaid[EuropeiadosDireitosHumanosEsseéocasomaisfrequentealiás”disse

Amadeu Guerra also drew attention to the “aspect of civil liability that can be requested by the people targeted” in a news article, for example witnesses in an investigation who, after seeing their name published, have to be placed in witness protection programs.

In April, the Strasbourg-based ECHR condemned Portugal for violating freedom of expression, imposing on the Portuguese State the payment of 1,510 euros to a Público journalist for violating her freedom of expression.

The journalist had been convicted in the first instance of violating judicial secrecy in the ‘secret case’, a sentence that was confirmed in the Court of Justice.

For the European court, Portuguese justice was limited to a “formal and automatic application of the crime of violating judicial secrecy”, without taking into account what was already known about the case and the supposed impact on the investigation of the disclosure of that information.

“It is questionable whether, taking into account the media coverage of the case, the facts under investigation and their political relevance, it was still necessary to prevent the disclosure of information that, at least in part, was already in the public domain”, considered the court.

The ECtHR highlighted that the published article “was a matter of considerable public interest” and that the case and its suspects had already been reported previously, so Portuguese justice should have had this circumstance in mind.