The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the Portuguese State must repay €30,000 to Visão magazine.
At issue was an abuse of the freedom of the press and of defamation.
In 2007, the former Prime Minister (2004-2005) Pedro Santana Lopes filed a lawsuit against Visão and against the journalist Filipe Luis “for abusing the freedom of the press and for defamation".
At issue was an opinion article published in 2004, over which Santana Lopes felt miffed as it contained a rebittal of his proposal that TV inteview programmes should have two interviewers, not just one, 'as a matter of balance'.
The article, ‘The Awakening of the President’, was not exactly complimentary about Lopes while describing the ongoing battle between Minister Rui Gomes da Silva and the TV pundit Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
The Filipe Luis article used a heavy dose of irony in trying to find justification for criticism leveled against the TV commentator Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
"The prime minister, somewhat cowardly, had his most faithful servant, Rui Gomes da Silva the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs accuse Marcelo de Sousa of being a liar and threatened to complain to a high authority. Was this a delirium caused by the use of hard drugs, a new national originality or just senseless nonsense?"
Pedro Santana Lopes felt offended and filed a complaint in the Court of Oeiras, claiming that the journalist had hinted at the consumption of hard drugs.
In 2010, Filipe Luis and the magazine’s owners were ordered to pay a total of €30,000 to Santana Lopes.
Visão’s publisher Medipress, owned by Impresa, appealed the decision but the sentence was confirmed and the company paid up.
In 2012, the owner of the magazine appealed to the European Court of Human Rights which has ordered the government to repay the €30,000 (plus considerable legal costs) "for violation of press freedom and the principles enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights."
Why the Portuguese taxpayer is funding this action and repaying the original €30,000, plus not inconsdierable legal costs, is not known as Santana Lopes was not prime minister in 2007 when the action was started.
Having read the European Court of Human Rights order to the Portuguese State to repay compensation to Visão’s owner, the Ministry of Justice is assessing whether there are grounds to appeal, a decision that should be taken within three months
Comments
I cannot quite work out how the fine was paid to Santana Lopes, and yet the State has to refund it. Even for Portugal, this logic is flawed. For ECHR it is incomprehensible.