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Timestamp: 2019-11-18 18:55:37
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Matched Legal Cases: ['art 19', 'artº 29', 'artº 483', 'artº 484', '§ 2', 'artº 272', 'artº 74', 'artº 456', 'artº 544']

McCann v Gonçalo Amaral Libel Trial in Lisbon - Judgement dated 27 April 2015
Author Topic: McCann v Gonçalo Amaral Libel Trial in Lisbon - Judgement dated 27 April 2015 (Read 4930 times)
« on: May 10, 2015, 06:58:33 PM »
« Last Edit: May 11, 2015, 02:09:44 AM by John »
Re: McCann v Gonçalo Amaral Libel Trial in Lisbon - Judgement
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2015, 07:07:52 PM »
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2015, 07:09:20 PM »
13. The defendant Goncalo Amaral retired from the police force on the 1st July 2008 (art 19 of the instruction basis).
14. On the 21st July 2008 the General Prosecution of the Republic divulged a note to the media announcing the archiving of the criminal investigation and that the same could be reopen by the initiative of the Public Ministry or any interested parties if new elements of evidence that would lead to pertinent diligences (article 20 of the instruction basis).
15. In the archiving report, 21.07.08:
The archiving of the Process concerning arguidos Gerald Patrick McCann and Kate Marie Healy, because there are no indications of the practice of any crime under the dispositions of article 277 number 1 of the Penal Process Code." (...)
« Last Edit: January 31, 2016, 10:45:26 PM by John »
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2015, 07:17:30 PM »
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2015, 07:24:25 PM »
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2015, 07:30:21 PM »
64. This illicit spread undermines not only the rights of the defendant VC-Valentim de Carvalho- Movies, Audiovisual, SA holds about the documentary, as its commercial exploitation, as any citizen can access the documentary, also with just one " click " (Article 37 of the instruction basis).
81. As a result of the defendant Goncalo Amaral's statements in the book, the documentary and interview with the CdM , the claimants Kate and Gerald McCann felt anger, despair, anguish, worry, suffering insomnia and lack of appetite (article 13 of the instruction basis).
84. Sean and Amelie McCann entered the school in August 2010 without knowledge of the defendant's thesis referred to above (article 17 of the instruction basis).
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2015, 07:47:20 PM »
- Is the book written by the defendant Goncalo Amaral, the adaptation of this book for the audiovisual documentary and the interview given by the same defendant illicit /anti-juridical according to article 484° of the Civil Procedure Code ?
II. The conflict in this case between freedom of expression and the right to good name and reputation of the claimants.
A first conclusion is that if the book is about an hypothetical checking of the facts or about the opinion of the author on how the evidence collected in the investigation should be read, one shouldn't speak of falsehood, untrue facts, and it doesn't make sense, without a better understanding, to discuss the "exceptio veritatis"
II. At the centre of this trial, there is a conflict between two existing rights, the right to good name and reputation of the claimants (through the presumption of innocence that they always were entitled to) and the right to freedom of expression of the defendant, in the concrete field of the right to opinion he is entitled to.
The criteria of harmonization of the various consecrated rights results of the following artº 29, paragraph 2, which states that;
« Last Edit: May 10, 2015, 07:56:20 PM by John »
« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2015, 08:03:48 PM »
In spite of the freedom of expression affirmed in this norm and of the prohibition of any interference in it by public authorities of each country, the paragraph 2 of the same article states that the exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
In effect, the article 26, paragraph 1 of that legal document, under the heading "other personal rights", states that to all are recognized rights ( ... ) to good name and reputation ( ... )
On the other hand, still in the civil code, artº 483º generically states that anyone who, intentionally or recklessly, unlawfully violates the rights of others or any legal disposition intending to protect interests of others has to compensate the injured party for damages resulting from that violation and artº 484º specifically establishes that anyone who claims or spreads a fact capable of harming the credit or the good name of any person, natural or legal, is liable for the damages suffered.
In this regard Pires de Lima and Antunes Varela teach that whether, by natural or legal persons, a subjective right to credit and good name exists or not, a behaviour threatening to cause them harm, in the prescribed terms, is considered as expressly anti-juridical. Never mind that the stated or disclosed fact corresponds to the truth or not, as long as it likely can, given the circumstances of the case, reduce the confidence in the ability and willingness of the person to fulfil their obligations (loss of credit) or shake the prestige that the person enjoys or the good image the person has (loss of good name) in the social environment in which the person lives or carries on their business ( ... ) [CC noted , Vol . I, Coimbra Editora , p. 486].
From this same jurisprudence one retains that in contrast to the traditional current of the Portuguese higher courts, this court does not accept, in principle, the priority of the right to honour and good over the freedom of expression/freedom of the press [are examples of this traditional line, among others, the Supreme Court Rulings of 14 February 2002 and 7 March 2002, reported in reviews N° 3379/01 and 184/02, of the 1st and 7th sections].
Very differently, according to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights freedom of speech and press prevails, admitting strict restrictions, especially when is at stake the debate of matters of public interest.
(v) considering the limits of freedom of expression, one should distinguish between factual assertions and value judgements, between statements addressed to the opinions of the opponents as opposed to judgements ad hominem and between what is critic and what is insult and (vi) the press has the duty to impart information and ideas on matters of public interest and in doing so is allowed to a certain amount of exaggeration, even of provocation.
[cfr., among many others, the Smolorz Processes c. Poland, Thoma c. Luxembourg and Palomo Sanchez and Others v. Spain, can read an exhaustive statement of the fundamental guidelines that the learned Court Judgement of the Lisbon Overview of February 14, 2012, that was the Rapporteur Hon. Judge Rijo Ferreira, available in [www.dgsi.pt].
In this sense, the Judgement of February 7, 2008 says it seems to us that the position of the ECHR results in an imposition on the way of thinking. There is no justification to think, from the outset, on whether a journalistic piece offends someone. It should rather start from the freedom that the respective authors enjoy. Only then one should seek whether is justified – in respect ot the referential criteria mentioned above, with the inclusion of a margin of proper appreciation by the internal organs of each of the Convention's signatory States - the restrictive interference in the field of that same freedom and the consequent move to legal sanctions.
This does not mean, however - in our view - that the cases in which such a restrictive interference is justified aren't intensely relevant. It is enough to read the paragraph 2 of Article 10 to weight what it contains in terms of essential values ​​for human beings "[Review No. 4403/07 of 2nd Section. In the same sense, can be read the Judgement of 12 March 2009 in the Review Nos 2972/08].
The Judgement of the Supreme Court of May 27, 2008 , quoted above, says the honour of the person translates therefore into the positive value that they infer themselves from the core of their being, that is the moral and ethic substrate of their existence, while the social consideration, the good name and the reputation translate into the judgment by others about every one.
Correspondingly, the right to good name and to reputation is essentially for the person not be offended or injured in their honour, dignity or social consideration by imputation of others and to fight back against this offence and to obtain redress [ idem ].
Capelo de Sousa teaches that honour covers immediately the projection of the value of human dignity, which is innate, offered by nature equally to all human beings, unlikely to be lost by any man in any circumstance ( ... ). In a broad sense, it also includes the good name and reputation, as syntheses of social appreciation for determining qualities of uniqueness of each individual at the intellectual, moral, sexual, family, professional or political level [The Personality General Law, 1995 , p. 303] .
Brito Correia added that honour also includes (...) the qualities acquired throughout life, by the individual's effort or otherwise and in various aspects (family, political, professional, scientific, literary, artistic, commercial, etc.). It covers inter alia, character, honesty, righteousness, loyalty, etc., corresponding to a sense of personal self-esteem. It is based on individual awareness of one's own worth : self-recognition and self-assessment.
According to the same author, the law protects, however, not only that personal feeling of own worth, which can call up the internal honour, but above the projection in the social consciousness of all the personal values ​​of each individual, which can be called external honour : the qualities a person needs to be respected in a social environment, including the good name and the reputation, the social consideration [ op. cit. p. 587].
The claimants Gerald and Kate McCann were made arguidos (formal suspects) in the criminal investigation, a status that had the function to guarantee their rights (though not being interpreted this way by the general public) and ceased with the closure of the investigation having the dispatch (AG) report concluded it has not been possible to obtain any piece of evidence that would allow for a average man, under the light of the criteria of logics, of normality and of the general rules of experience, to formulate any lucid, sensate, serious and honest conclusion about the circumstances under which the child was removed from the apartment (whether dead or alive, whether killed in a neglectful homicide or an intended homicide, whether the victim of a targeted abduction or an opportunistic abduction), nor even to produce a consistent prognosis about her destiny and inclusively - the most dramatic - to establish whether she is still alive or if she is dead, as seems more likely.
(…) Therefore, after all seen, analysed and duly pondered, with all that is left exposed, it is determined: (…) The archiving of the process concerning arguidos Gerald Patrick McCann and Kate Marie Healy, because there are no indications of the practise of any crime under the dispositions of article 277 number 1 of the Penal Process Code. (n°15).
« Last Edit: May 10, 2015, 08:34:46 PM by John »
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2015, 08:50:41 PM »
Accordingly the decision in Karaman process vs Germany claims that the Court has previously held in this context that Article 6 § 2 aims at preventing undermining of a fair criminal trial by prejudicial statements made in close connection with proceedings. It not only prohibits the premature expression by the tribunal itself of the opinion the person «charged with a criminal offence» is guilty before he has been so proved according to the law, but also covers statements made by other public officials about pending criminal investigations which encourage the public to believe the suspect guilty and prejudge an assessment of the facts by the competent judicial authority [HUDOC].
In the United Kingdom the case Allen v UK emphasized the importance of the presumption after the acquittal or dismissal of the criminal investigation, explaining that this principle prevents suspects or defendants in such cases are treated as if they were in fact responsible for the criminal offences of which they were accused and stressing that without this second level of protection – the level of full respect for acquittal or archiving – the presumption of innocence will remain illusory or merely ideal.
Likewise, the presumption of innocence requires that the absence of guilt that emanates from it is respected, after the acquittal or dismissal, in all legal proceedings of any kind and by any authority that comes into contact with these facts [idem Allen c. United Kingdom].
In this case, the claimants Kate and Gerald MacCann never ceased to benefit from this presumption of innocence and from the imperative of behaviour that this presumption places on national judicial and justice authorities and all the civil servants and agents.
The defendant Goncalo Amaral was the coordinator of criminal investigation from the date of the crime news and October 2nd, 2007 (n° 12)
On 1st July 2008, GA retired from the Judicial Police, having the book Maddie - The Truth of the Lie been released on the 24th and sold with the same day edition of the newspaper Correio da Manha, an edition that published the interview which is part of this trial (paragraphs 13, 25, 26 and 48).
The police have the responsibility of defending democratic legality, insuring internal security and protecting the citizens' rights [artº 272 of the Portuguese Constitution].
The Judicial Police is an upper organ of criminal police that assists the administration of justice, organised hierarchically, depending on the Minister of Justice and supervised by law [article 1 of the Organic Law of the Judicial Police, approved by Decree-Law No. 275- A / 2000 of November 9, as amended by Decree-Law No. 235/2005, of 30 December, then in force].
The criminal investigation coordinators are authorities of criminal police for the purposes of criminal procedural law [article 11 paragraph g) of the same law].
Under the Disciplinary Regulations of the Judicial Police, the duty of confidentiality is one of the general duties of the members of the Judicial Police [paragraph e) of article 5 of the Regulation approved by Decree-Law No. 196/94, of 21 July].
Alongside this general duty of confidentiality, the organic law requires from the civil servants working in the Judicial Police a duty of reserve, prescribing that (...) they cannot make public disclosures related to lawsuits or matter of reserved nature other than what is planned in this law about public information and preventive actions concerning the population and also the provisions of the criminal procedure law [paragraph 2 of article 12].
Even so the admissible statements (…) are subjects to prior authorisation provided by the national director or the national deputy directors, at risk of disciplinary proceedings, maintaining the eventual criminal liability [paragraph 3 of article 12].
The duty of reserve is a functional requirement common to magistrates and organs of criminal police. As an example, in the case of the magistrates of the Public Ministry, the ordinary law postulates that this duty will remain after retirement, establishing the paragraph 7 of article 148 of the Statute that retired judges must respect the reserve required by their condition.
The statute of the retirement [approved by Decree-Law 498/72 of 9 December] establishes, from its original wording in the respective artº 74, paragraph 1, that the retired, apart from his right to a retirement pension, remains bound to the civil service, keeping the titles and the category of the position he held and the rights and duties that do not depend on being in activity.
According to the notice of the Attorney General Department's advisory Council on February 16, 2006 (Esteves Remedio, in www.ministeriopublico.pt ) the legal relationship of retirement is, compared to the legal relationship of public employment, a relationship less intense where there is a blurring of the ties between the retired and the Administration, translated in the reduction of rights and duties. There is even so a "bond to the civil service", which materialises in conserving the titles and the position of the function exercised and the rights and duties that are not dependent on activity status "(emphasis added). The same note concluded that "the retired remains subject to duties of private conduct translated in particular in the abstention of practice of facts integrators of crimes that have a relevant connection with the functions previously carried out and thus affect actually the functioning of the service or in a serious way the dignity and the prestige of the function or of the Administration (idem).
Bearing in mind that legal mosaic, how to solve the conflict in this case between the rights of the claimants Gerald and Kate McCann to their good name and reputation and the defendant Goncalo Amaral's right to his opinion as resorting to freedom of expression he's entitled to?
In this documentary, the defendant is explicit right in the opening. My name is Goncalo Amaral and was investigator of the Judicial Police for 27 years. Coordinated the investigation of Madeleine McCann 's disappearance on 3 May 2007. In the next 50 minutes I will prove that the child was not kidnapped ( ... ) (n° 41)
The book conveys the idea that the truth of the investigation is merely formal, while the truth of the author (that would have been met at the end of the line of inquiry that had been followed up to his removal from the case) is the material truth - This book still has a purpose greater. The contribute to the discovery of material truth and the realisation of justice ( ... ) (No. 23) .
But, at least in our view, that same status cannot but mark the limits of the defendant's freedom of expression when compared to the one detained by others. Having been in charge of that investigation as a member of the Judicial Police, the defendant Goncalo Amaral, although retired on 1st July 2008, did not enjoy, on the following July 24, in respect of the results of the criminal investigation released on the 21st of the same month and year, a large and full freedom of expression. This freedom was conditioned by the functions he had, functions that imposed him special duties that traverse the status of retirement, including the duty of reserve.
In this concrete situation, despite the personal reasons that the defendant invokes in the introductory note of the book, the freedom of expression should cede through the imperative of that reserve. It was not what happened and the truth is that on 24 July 2008, barely three days after the release of the the dispatch shelving the investigation for lack of proof, the book was launched, sold with the newspaper's edition and the interview was published.
The time-line displays well the intention to call for the contradictory, in the public domain, the shelving of the investigation, comparing it with the thesis of the previous line of investigation, told as the true one by a person who had been responsible for the same investigation.
This form of resolving the conflict between the rights reveals the illegality of the conduct of the defendant Goncalo Amaral in respect of the effects of article 484 of the Civil Code.
III. At this point, other presuppositions of the obligation to compensate should be examined, obligation provided for in the article 483º, paragraph 1 of the Civil Code, and determining first whether the defendant acted with guilt and, if so, whether from his conduct resulted damage having in his behaviour its proper cause.
The judgement of personal censorship that can be directed to the defendant Goncalo Amaral seems evident, given the standard of article 487º, paragraph 2, of the Civil Code, being particularly emphasised by the way the events were organised chronologically - the disclosure of the investigation shelving on July 21, 2008, the book launch, its sale and the interview published on next 24th.
The claimants Sean and Amelie had no contact with these events (n° 84) and facing the potentiality of this to happen they'll reflexively suffer depending on the offence committed against their parents. The national civil law does not protect, in principle, reflexive damage (Acordao (Judiciary Agreement) of Standardisation of Jurisprudence of January 16, 2014, prescribed in the case 6430 / 07.0TBBRG.S1 clearly demonstrates the exceptional nature of such protection) .
Therefore it will necessary to compensate the duly confirmed damage within the parameters of paragraph 4 of the article 496º of the Civil Code, those whom the defendant's conduct harmed - the claimants Gerald and Kate McCann .
As the criterion to be followed in determining the "quantum" of the compensation is equity, the degree of guilt of the one who injured should be weighed, the seriousness of the offence and, because it is particularly relevant in this case, the amount of benefits he earned with the offence. The offence committed to the good name of the injured ones had a very wide dissemination (paragraphs 27, 28, 30 and 47), having been the subject of intense media coverage both in Portugal and in the UK.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2015, 09:05:53 PM by John »
« Reply #9 on: May 10, 2015, 09:12:08 PM »
It has been shown that as a result of this (ambiguous, likely the media coverage) the claimants Kate and Gerald McCann suffered personal injury that deserves the protection of law (n°s 81, 82 and 83 ) .
The same offence allowed the defendant earn the amount of about 382.000 € of profits (paragraphs 33 and 62, this last value including the profits of the sale of the DVD in a way supposed not to be very rigorous, but should be materially true, because if the DVD was only sold at the end of April 2009, the process for its marketing began on 7 March 2008 with the contract concluded with the defendant VC Filmes, this defendant having paid the 40.000 € documented p. 2095).
The claimants also call for compensation to be paid later for the costs that may incur with legal actions necessary to take away the committed offence (paragraph 4 of demands). Civil law protects the future damage "if predictable". In case that damage is not immediately ascertainable, it will be settled at a later decision (article 564º, paragraph 2 of the Civil Code). This part of the application is not grounded on predictable future damage (nothing has been proven in that respect) but on merely hypothetical or potential damages, so it cannot be proceeded.
Nevertheless, paragraph 2 of the article 70 of the Civil Code anticipates, regardless of the civil liability that might arise, that the court may order, in situations of offence to personality, "provisions appropriate to the circumstances" in particular in order to "attenuate the effects of the offence already committed". The measure at issue, though suitable in theory, is not, as it appears, necessary in this case. The claimants have, supporting them, a professional structure of communication and press attachés that makes redundant any measure of that kind (n°s 67, 68 , 68, 70, 71 and 77)
The system of legal costs provides, in respect of the expenses, the payment by the losing party to the winning one fifty percent of the paid court fees, as compensation for the fees charged by the legal agent [paragraph c) of paragraph 3 of the article 26 of Regulation of Lawsuit Costs]. Apart from this regime only two legal hypotheses consider this requested payment : the litigation in bad faith, without application, obviously, as ground of the demand in question and the pre-existing negotiated agreement forecasting that obligation (as it happens, eg in mutual loan contracts to finance the purchase of housing). Since neither of the two hypotheses is pertinent, the demand will have to be dismissed.
IV. In the attached action the claimants face the same defendant and also Guerra & Paz, Editores, V.C Filmes e TVI with a set of demands that are affiliated, in our view, to the provision of the article 70 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code quoted above.
b) The prohibition on implementation of new editions of the book or DVD, as well as transfer of editing rights and copyright is adequate and should be directed against the defendants Goncalo Amaral, Guerra & Paz and VC Filmes who is, relative to the first, the owner of the book audiovisual adaptation rights (paragraphs 35 and 36). The court may not, under penalty of a form of prior censorship, adopt any measure concerning "other books and videos on the same theme".
e) The mandatory sanction is appropriate, but should be fixed in accordance with the provision in paragraph 1 of the article 829º -A of the Civil Code, only for payments in fact insubstituable, considering proportionate the amount of 50.000 € for each offence to this order (paragraph 2 of article 829º -A of the Civil Code ).
V. In the current version of the Code of Civil Procedure remains untouched the scope of bad-faith, also covering the gross negligence litigation [artº 456th, # 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure]. In the same version, however, the responsibility for litigation of bad faith of collective persons lies on the party, and not, as it occurred before the Law n° 41/2013 of 26 June, on the legal representative [artº 544 th of the Code of Civil Procedure].
Are examples of serious negligence, for that purpose, a reckless or bold dispute (the party, though convinced of their reason, risks gross error in filing the action or the defence disregarding the significant reasons of fact or law which compromised their claim) ; the demand on a whim, with emulation spirit or gross error ; the wanton or reckless complaint ; the serious lack of care duty ; the persistent and forceful opposition, clearly and decisively unfounded, for incorrect interpretation and application of law and maladjustment to the proven facts ; the claim or defence obviously unbearable, constituting the abuse of the right to action; the serious technical failure (this sense, A. GERALDES, Judicial Themes, I Vol).
c) seriously neglecting the duty to cooperate;
Is litigating of bad faith the party who claims, but does not prove, a version that contradicts the one submitted by the counterpart, if it is proved, in return, that this includes facts of which the first had personal knowledge [cf. Judgement of the Supreme Court of 7.10.2004, Laura Leonardo, accessible on www.dgsi.pt ].
It is therefore bad-faith litigation to deny essential facts that one necessarily has knowledge for being personal [cf. Judgement of Supreme Court of 20.9.2007, Maria Pizarro Beleza, accessible on the same website].
In the assessment of factual assumptions in order to condemn a party as bad faith litigant, the judge can only take into account their conduct through the lawsuit, but not their behaviour before the action started being judged [cf. Judgement of Lisbon Appeal Court of 23.6.2005, Urbano Dias, available on www.dgsi.pt ].
« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2015, 09:15:06 PM »
Credit to Anne Guedes for original translation.