Portugal sentenced at the Human Rights Court for violating journalist’s rights | Justice

Portugal was once again condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for violating freedom of expression, this time of a PÚBLICO journalist.

In 2012, journalist Cristina Ferreira reported that the Public Ministry was investigating several members of the secret services, a process that would end with the sentencing, years later, to a suspended sentence of the former director of the Strategic Information Service of Defense (SIED), Jorge Silva Carvalho, for violation of state secrets, abuse of power and illegitimate access to data.

In a news item published in February of that year, the media professional revealed that, in addition to Silva Carvalho, at that time the Public Prosecutor’s Office had in its sights two more members of the secret services also hired by Ongoing the previous year. They had in common with some leaders of this economic group linked to telecommunications, media and technology that they also belonged to the Masonic lodge Mozart, which had gained media attention “for involving managers, police officers, spies, ex-spies, lawyers, journalists and active politicians, as well as the then leader of the social democratic bench, Luís Montenegro”.

Years later, the now recently sworn-in Prime Minister would deny this affiliation, although journalistic investigations ensure that he did, in fact, join the store in question.

But what led to the conviction of the PÚBLICO journalist by the Portuguese courts were much simpler reasons: having written that, during searches carried out on Ongoing as part of this investigation, the Judiciary Police had seized the computers of two former spies.

Despite the information being true, the Public Prosecutor’s Office accused Cristina Ferreira of violating judicial secrecy, having ended up being convicted of committing this crime with a fine of one thousand euros.

Almost seven years later, the European Court of Human Rights forced the Portuguese State to return the thousand euros, considering that the application of the fine “constituted a disproportionate interference with the right to freedom of expression that was not necessary in a democratic society”.

Stressing the public interest of the news in question, as it concerned a judicial investigation involving senior intelligence officials and high-level political figures, the Strasbourg judges noted that several articles before this one had already reported on the investigation into secret. “Therefore, 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”, may read the decision released this Tuesday morning.

Furthermore, the judges add, the national authorities were unable to demonstrate that the news of the seizure of the computers harmed the investigation. “The Portuguese authorities appear to have relied on a formal and automatic application of the crime of violating judicial secrecy and did not take into account the particular circumstances of the publication and its purpose, as well as its impact on the investigation”, they criticize. In these circumstances, the protection of judicial secrecy “cannot constitute an imperative requirement”.

PÚBLICO’s lawyer, Francisco Teixeira da Mota, considers this conviction a shame for Portugal. “But also for me, for not being able to convince some Portuguese judiciary of the meaning of freedom of expression”, he adds.