OAS » IACHR » Special Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression » Chile

Freedom of Expression

Chile

            Attacks

 

            46.       On September 3, 2003, Domingo Kokisch, a member of the Supreme Court, called journalist Ximena Marré and editor Mario Ovalle, both of the newspaper El Mercurio, to his office to clarify information published by that newspaper regarding a case of theft of classified financial information.  During that meeting, Kokisch spoke with the journalists using an aggressive tone and asked journalist Marré who her sources were for the story.  The journalist refused to answer and Kokisch then expelled them from his office.  As they exited, Kokisch pushed Ovalle and tried to slap him, but he moved out of the way.  Several days later, Kokisch said he regretted the events in question and, in a meeting with the director of El Mercurio, Juan Pablo Illanes, personally apologized for the incident.  On September 9, 2003, the director of the newspaper La Nación, Alberto Luengo, revealed that on January 7, 2003, Luis Narváez, a journalist with La Nación Domingo, was beaten and threatened by Kokisch for having asked him about the Supreme Court’s consideration of whether to lift the immunity of four deputies of the political group Concertación, which had allegedly been tied to a case of corruption.  Narváez said that he did not report the incident in a timely fashion since he assumed, given the lack of witnesses, that no one would believe his testimony.[1]

 

            Judicial actions

 

            47.       On January 13, 2003, in a divided opinion, the Second Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiagoaffirmed the seizure of all of the copies of the unauthorized biography Cecilia, la vida en llamas, by journalist Cristóbal Peña.  The decision thus affirmed the resolution handed down December 2, 2002 by alternate judge Sandra Rojas of the First Court for Criminal Matters of the Chilean capital, who, in the context of a defamation (injurias) trial, issued the order to withdraw all copies of the biography from the warehouses of Editorial Planeta and from the sales outlets.[2]  In late May 2003, the First Court for Criminal Matters lifted the seizure order and closed the case, after Peña’s representatives asked the court to decree that the complainant had abandoned the proceedings.[3]

 

            48.       On July 23, 2003, a panel of judges of the Court of Appeals of Santiago ordered Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) not to broadcast an episode of the documentary series Enigma, scheduled to be shown that same day.  The program investigated and recreated the circumstances around the assassination of attorney Patricio Torres Reyes, who was stabbed to death and burned by two prostitutes after a sexual encounter in his office on December 17, 1999.  The widow of Torres filed a recurso de protección before the Court of Appeals of Santiago to ban the program, arguing that it violated her constitutional right to honor, as well as the right to honor of her children.  This incident was the subject of a press release by the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression on July 29.[4]  On October 1, the Fifth Chamber of the Court of Appeals denied the recurso de protección and lifted the censorship of the program.[5]

 

            49.       On April 16, 2003, the Sixth Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiagoreported the denial of two recursos de protección that had been filed against the play Prat.  The objective of the motions was to ban any performance of the play.  The Sixth Chamber argued that granting the motion would be tantamount to prior censorship, which is expressly prohibited by the Constitution and by the American Convention on Human Rights.[6]

 

            50.       On January 31, 2003, businessman and television commentator Eduardo Yáñez was found guilty, in a trial court, of the crime of contempt (desacato) of the Supreme Court. The judge set a penalty of 61 days imprisonment plus a fine of 11 Monthly Taxation Units (equivalent to 321,673 pesos, or US$460).  Yáñez appealed the verdict to the Court of Appeals of Santiago, which acquitted him on April 2, 2003.[7]

 

            51.       In October 2003, a judge from the Second Court for Criminal Matters of Santiago decided to bring to trial the director of the daily newspaper La Nación, Alberto Luengo, and journalist Jazmín Jalilie, in the wake of a publication in which it was reported that there had been judicial problems between soccer player Marcel Salas and his former father-in-law Patricio Messen.  The journalists were accused of committing defamation (calumnia) against Mr. Messen.[8]

 

            Legislation

 

            52.       In his 2002 Annual Report, the Rapporteur indicated his satisfaction at the existence of two bills to repeal the desacato laws.  In particular, on August 26, 2002, President Lagos urgently sent the Congress Presidential Law 212-347, which would do away with the desacato laws that remain in Chilean legislation.

 

            53.       On March 6, 2003, in a note to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, Soledad Alvear, the Rapporteur expressed his concern over statements by President Ricardo Lagos regarding his intent to cease considering the bill a matter of “straightforward urgency” (“urgencia simple”).  The State responded to the Rapporteur’s concern through its permanent mission to the OAS on March 25.  In its response, the State indicated that the time for considering the bill had expired in January 2003.  Nonetheless, the State emphasized that the Ministry of the General Secretariat of the Government (Ministerio Secretaría General de Gobierno) of Chile would seek to include the legislation to repeal the desacato laws among the urgent initiatives it would be dispatching for legislative consideration.

 

            54.       The Special Rapporteur considers that, even though the bill has not been approved more than a year-and-a-half after it was presented, it is extremely auspicious that, on December 9, 2003, the Chamber of Deputies of Chile approved, by a wide majority, the bill to repeal the desacato provisions from the Criminal Code and the Military Justice Code.  At this writing, the proposal had been sent to the Senate for its second step in the constitutional procedure.

 

55.       Despite these steps leading to the repeal of the desacato laws, the Rapporteurship was informed of the existence of another bill related to the protection of persons' honor and privacy.  The Rapporteurship encourages the deputies to take into account the international standards and the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in the discussion of this bill, so that it can be compatible with the full and uninhibited exercise of freedom of expression.

 

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