Victory in Argentina
The Argentina Senate last night passed a reform that is welcomed but arrives many years late.
After the Chamber of Deputies approved it last month, the Senate finally passed the reform of the Criminal Code decriminalizing defamation laws.
The bill, submitted by the executive power, reforms articles 109, 110, 111, 113 and 117, and eliminates Art. 112 so that defamation offenses are excluded in case of “expressions referred to matters of public interest.”
The presidential initiative was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on Oct. 28 and the Senate followed suit on Wednesday, Nov. 18. Now it is the turn of President Cristina Kirshner to sign the bill into law.
The battle to decriminalize defamation laws in Argentina started in 2001 when journalist Eduardo Kímel took his case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after being sentenced to one year in prison and to pay a US$20,000 fine.
The charges stemmed from a suit brought by a judge mentioned in Kímel's book about a massacre committed during the military dictatorship in the 1970's.
Seventeen years after Kímel published his book, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled for him and ordered the Argentine state to reform the laws that had been arbitrarily used to indict, sentence and harass Kímel.
The Argentine Congress and President Kirshner are to be congratulated for this historic step toward a true press freedom atmosphere in one of the most influential countries in the hemisphere.
Even though the bill has its flaws, Argentine journalists will no longer have to work with a Damocles sword dangling over their heads called criminal defamation laws.
After the Chamber of Deputies approved it last month, the Senate finally passed the reform of the Criminal Code decriminalizing defamation laws.
The bill, submitted by the executive power, reforms articles 109, 110, 111, 113 and 117, and eliminates Art. 112 so that defamation offenses are excluded in case of “expressions referred to matters of public interest.”
The presidential initiative was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on Oct. 28 and the Senate followed suit on Wednesday, Nov. 18. Now it is the turn of President Cristina Kirshner to sign the bill into law.
The battle to decriminalize defamation laws in Argentina started in 2001 when journalist Eduardo Kímel took his case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after being sentenced to one year in prison and to pay a US$20,000 fine.
The charges stemmed from a suit brought by a judge mentioned in Kímel's book about a massacre committed during the military dictatorship in the 1970's.
Seventeen years after Kímel published his book, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled for him and ordered the Argentine state to reform the laws that had been arbitrarily used to indict, sentence and harass Kímel.
The Argentine Congress and President Kirshner are to be congratulated for this historic step toward a true press freedom atmosphere in one of the most influential countries in the hemisphere.
Even though the bill has its flaws, Argentine journalists will no longer have to work with a Damocles sword dangling over their heads called criminal defamation laws.
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