The Third Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas has confirmed the sentence issued a year ago against the national newspaper ABC and one of its editors for illegitimate interference with the right to honor of Judge César Romero Pamparacuatro, by publishing untruthfully that the judge was being investigated for falsehood in the Unión case. According to the ruling of the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 2 of Puerto de la Cruz, which has now been fully ratified, they must jointly compensate the magistrate with 30,000 euros.
In addition to the compensation, the sentence obliges the newspaper ABC to publish in its paper edition, the day after the resolution becomes final, the heading and the ruling, in several pages and sections of the newspaper and under the headline "Sentence to the newspaper ABC and Javier Chicote for injury to the right to honor of magistrate Don César Romero Pamparacuatro".
The events occurred on December 14, 2015, when the newspaper ABC published a news item under the headline 'A judge, a secretary and two civil guards falsified the biggest corruption case in Lanzarote'. In a second headline, within a two-page spread, they added: 'The actions of the officials may lead to the annulment of the case'.
In addition, in the same newspaper and within the section 'To the four winds', a loose article was published under the title 'Lanzarote, Unión case: siege of a judge, a secretary and two civil guards'.
The sentence states that when the newspaper published this information regarding the Unión case summary, the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, the only body competent to impute crimes to a practicing judge in the islands, was not conducting any investigation against Judge Pamparacuatro.
The sentence that has now been confirmed added that the media "did not act diligently and that with the aforementioned headlines, it basically limited itself to spreading simple rumors or inventions that discredited the judicial processes that were being followed on certain corruption cases, for which it defamed those who participated in the investigation and instruction of such cases, specifically, the plaintiff here." "As they are not truthful, since it does not appear that the defendant acted diligently to verify that his statements corresponded to reality, the intrusion into the honor of the plaintiff is illegitimate and disproportionate," he adds.
