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The second criminal court of the Bogotá circuit ruled in favor of a guardianship presented by the sister of former paramilitary Juan Guillermo Monsalve, one of the witnesses against former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez and who appears in the proceedings against the ex-president for alleged bribery of witnesses and procedural fraud.
In the guardianship, Monsalve’s sister assured that the Magazine week, through its digital channel Tv week, and journalists Vicky Dávila and Jairo Fidel Lozano Bustos, violated their rights to personal and family privacy.
Those rights, he assured in his guardianship, were violated for the publication of private conversations of the Monsalv familye that they had been intercepted, and that they were part of the confidential file of the case against Álvaro Uribe Vélez, which was in the Supreme Court of Justice and which later went to the Attorney General’s Office, after his resignation from the Senate.
(Read also: Uribe case: clean slate or does what has been done in Court continue?).
In the telephone conversations, revealed by Semana TV on August 30, the guardianship assures, private matters were aired such as the health status of Juan Guillermo Monsalve’s mother, her personal problems, where Monsalve’s sister worked, was exposed, family financial affairs, and the names of their minor children were aired.
In his ruling, Octavio Carrillo Carreño, second criminal judge of the Bogotá circuit, agreed with Monsalve’s sister and it assured that there was indeed a “flagrant violation of the right to privacy of the plaintiff and her family group.”
Also, says the court, rights were violated by publishing telephone communications that “have a reserved nature” and concern “only the investigation carried out at the time by the Investigation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice.”
Thus the judge cHe ordered copies to the Attorney General’s Office to investigate whether in the development of the publication of these interceptions and reserved evidence there was a crime and, if so, identify who is responsible.
(Pasture: The moves in the case of Luis Alfredo Ramos and his new magistrate).
The judge made that decision stating that the interceptions made by the Supreme Court in this case are of a confidential nature and “its use is not allowed, less its disclosure in diverse matters of criminal proceedings “. He also said that journalists, although they have the right to report, cannot use evidence that is confidential.
The judge says he does not want to censor Semana, but affirms that what they received and disclosed was not information but evidence. Thus, the court says, these interceptions were collected for specific purposes within a criminal proceeding, “not to be disclosed by Semana Magazine and the journalists involved. Nor for the reporters made their own speculations from what they heard, supplying the judicial work assigned solely to the judges, even generating a priori value judgments on the conversations heard “.
These interceptions were not collected for the reporters to make their own speculations based on what they heard, replacing the judicial work assigned only to the judges
The judge also ordered the director of Semana Magazine and journalists Vicky Dávila and Jairo Fidel Lozano that in 48 hours they remove the broadcast of the program from all platforms “‘Exclusive: the conversations of the witness Monsalve with his family”, broadcast on August 30 of this year.
On the other hand, he did not agree to the request made by Monsalve’s sister to demand that the journalists offer her an apology since, according to the court, it was not misinformation.
(Further: The 14 witnesses who will testify in the trial of lawyer Diego Cadena).
Faced with the right to privacy, the court questioned, For example, what does Monsalve’s mother’s illness have to do with it? or the work of his sister with the investigation against Uribe.
The judge says that the journalistic importance of exposing the private life of Monsalve’s sister is not seen for the Semana Magazine and its journalists, since it is not found relevant to expose the fear that the former paramilitary’s sister had that her employer will find out about your family relationship with a detained person.
It also cites jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court that indicates that it is not acceptable for a media, without the consent of a person, publish information on the “strictly particular” area, such as spousal altercations, family affairs, health problems, emotional or financial problems.
And it concludes that the interceptions revealed by the media put the personal integrity of “all members of the family at risk.” Against the ruling there is room for an appeal.
JUSTICE
Twitter: @JusticiaET
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