“Not even the dictatorship was that ambitious”, says jurist about the STF’s decision

Jurist Luís Francisco Carvalho Filho criticized this Thursday (30) the decision of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) that provides for the possibility of holding journalistic companies responsible for statements made by interviewees. He classified the Court’s determination as “a mistake that could send us back to dark times”. Carvalho is a criminal lawyer and chaired the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances.

“Now, the STF intends to establish a political regime of intangibility of the honor of personalities and politicians, including corrupt and scoundrels. Not even the dictatorship was so ambitious”, said the jurist in his column published in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. Earlier, the president of the STF, minister Luís Roberto Barroso, stated that liability will only occur in cases of “intentional intent, bad faith or serious negligence” on the part of the media outlet.

However, journalistic entities and opposition parliamentarians criticized the decision, pointing out that, among other impacts, it could generate prior censorship. “The decision is also idiotic: the principle has no viable application when it comes to live interviews, unless it establishes the obligation of some preventive or simultaneous censorship mechanism”, Carvalho pointed out.

The thesis established by the STF provides for the removal of journalistic content “for information that is proven to be insulting, defamatory, slanderous or untrue”. The jurist pointed out that the decision will also affect small and medium media outlets that could be targets of “local justice, often exercised by corporatist and authoritarian magistrates”.

“In addition to encouraging self-censorship and suggesting the existence of limits to the right to criticism, contradicting previous liberal understandings of the court itself, when it acted as guardian of freedom of expression, today’s STF, more petty, encourages the ‘judge on the corner ‘ to punish media outlets that do not ‘verify the veracity of the facts’ before publishing the interview”, stated Carvalho.