Uruguay

WHEREAS Decision number 366 of the Supreme Court, in which a television channel and two journalists were ordered to pay reparations to a criminal judge five years after the reporters concerned criticized decisions of her when she sent to prison a person who was later declared innocent by a higher court WHEREAS in its ruling the Supreme Court decided to punish the television channel and the journalists for their having used “inappropriate” words in their reporting and on the basis that the information was not of “public interest” WHEREAS the Court also held in its ruling that common citizens lack sufficient “ability” to issue opinions: “on the correctness or not of court decisions” and that the “public interest” in news “must not only be useful or timely for the one reporting, but be of a pressing social need.” WHEREAS the Court said in its decision that “abuse in general terms means to use badly, excessively, unfairly and unduly the right” to freedom of expression and what should be required of journalists is “the greatest prudence, sense of proportion and reasonability in their reporting” due to the “undoubted” “harmful” potential that its attributed to mass communication media WHEREAS the arguments used by the Court to convict the channel and the two journalists flagrantly contradict Inter-American Human Rights Court case law, the Inter-American Declaration of Freedom of Expression, the Declaration of Chapultepec and the new legal standards that govern in Uruguay on this matter WHEREAS Principle 1 of the Declaration of Chapultepec warns that the exercise of freedom of expression and of the press “is not something authorities grant, it is an inalienable right of the people” WHEREAS the same Declaration says that “no one may restrict or deny “the right to seek and receive information, express opinions and disseminate them freely” (Principle 2) and that “no news medium nor journalist may be punished for publishing the truth or criticizing or denouncing the government” (Principle 10) THE IAPA MIDYEAR MEETING RESOLVES to express its strong rejection of Decision number 366 of the Uruguay Supreme Court as being contrary to freedom of expression and of the press, both in its ruling and in the arguments employed by the judges to draw attention to the serious setback that this court decision signifies for the free practice of journalism in Uruguay and to the self-censorship that decisions of this kind, issued by the leading legal authority, can cause media and journalists to resort to to relay this resolution to the Inter-American Human Rights Court, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and to the Special Rapporteurs for Freedom of Expression of the Organization of American States and the United Nations.