Puerto Rico

PUERTO RICO Both the Senate and House of Representatives have adopted measures to restrict or block access of the press to public documents. The measures were taken as a result of a conflict between the Puerto Rican legislature and the press over the publication of information concerning questionable operations by senators and representatives. An amendment to the Governmental Ethics Code, passed by the legislature at the end of last year, makes it difficult to obtain copies of legislators' financial reports. On June 30, the Senate made some changes in its internal rules to restrict or exclude the obtention by the press of documents related to employees or officials, as well as "documents which form part of an investigation or process under consideration by the Congress or any of it committees." The restrictive measures imposed by the legislature were enacted after a representative was jailed and a dozen were taken to court as a result of journalistic investigations. For more than a year, journalists have frequently been the target of verbal attacks, seeking to disparage their professional quality and to muzzle their labor. As a result of an incident concerning members of the legislature, a representative of the government party verbally attacked El Nuevo Día journalist Maria Judith Luciano and her relatives. Later, the journalist received constant telephone threats, which provoked a heated reaction from the media and journalists' associations. In other matters, in an agreement independent of the Federal Tribunal of the district of San Juan, the Secretary of Justice and the prosecution, the newspaper El Diario and the Overseas Press Club of San Juan decided to ignore a ruling by the Special Investigations Section that establishes sanctions for revealing information concerning the activities of the Section, even if the information is accurate and results in the conviction of a corrupt public offiCial. Finally, a campaign by the Puerto Rican Journalists Association in favor of the licensing of journalists has not prospered. A recent poll taken of members of the Overseas Press Club of San Juan repudiated journalist licensing by a margin of two to one.