The Third Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas has ratified the conviction of journalist Francisco Chavanel and the media outlets Lancelot and Canarias 7 for harming the right to honor of César Romero Pamparacuatro, the judge who initiated the Unión case. In its ruling, the court sets compensations for a total of 162,000 euros for the "defamatory" attacks they directed against the magistrate, almost quadrupling the amount that was set in the first instance. Against the sentence, however, an appeal for cassation before the Supreme Court is still possible.
Specifically, the Court of First Instance and Instruction Number 3 of Puerto de la Cruz established a compensation of 45,000 euros for the "damages" caused to Pamparacuatro, for having been disseminating false information that sought to discredit him and his work at the head of the Unión case. However, the judge appealed said ruling claiming a higher compensation, before which the Court has agreed with him, partially revoking the appealed sentence in the sense of establishing the total amount of the compensations at 162,000 euros.
The convicted parties also filed appeals against the first instance sentence, but these have been dismissed by the Provincial Court, which considers that "the information and articles published in the newspaper Canarias 7, in the newspaper Lancelotdigital.com, and the broadcasts of the El Espejo Canario program constitute an illegitimate intrusion into the right to honor of César Romero Pamparacuatro".
They must publish the sentence in their respective media outlets
Thus, the Court condemns Informaciones Canarias S.A., publisher of Canarias 7, to compensate César Romero Pamparacuatro with 2,000 euros "for the damages inferred" by an article signed by the journalist Carlos Inza, under the title "Pamparacuatro had the prosecutor without informing for more than two years". In addition, Canarias 7 has been sentenced to compensate the magistrate with 24,000 euros, jointly and severally with Francisco Javier Chavanel, for the opinion articles he published by the journalist, in what he considers "proven and declared the seriousness and intensity of the injuries to the right to honor" of Pamparacuatro.
In addition, Canarias 7 must publish in its paper edition "the Sunday following the firmness of the resolution" the "heading and ruling" of the sentence that has given the judge the reason "with equal relevance and the same type of letter" with which he published the articles of the series 'Mirrors have no memory' by Francisco Chavanel.
For its part, Editorial Lancelot must compensate the judge, also jointly and severally with Chavanel, in the amount of 20,000 euros. In addition, like Canarias 7, it must make the conviction public and keep it "on the cover" of its website Lancelot Digital "for 24 hours". Likewise, all the articles he published by Chavanel and that "have been deemed to violate honor", must contain "a permanent link at the top" that "redirects the reader to the conviction with its full content".
In this case, it should be noted that as the sole administrator of Editorial Lancelot, the company Bodegas Stratvs SL. has been listed since 2013, whose owner is the businessman Juan Francisco Rosa, arrested and accused in the Unión case that Pamparacuatro initially investigated.
As for El Escorpión de Jade, producer of Chavanel's radio program 'El Espejo Canario', will have to face together with the journalist a compensation of 60,000 euros and must reproduce the sentence in the radio space "for five weeks in a row" doing it each week on "a different day", starting "the first reproduction on Monday of the first week, continuing on Tuesday of the second and so on until reaching Friday of the fifth week".
Finally, the entity Faycán Publicidad and Francisco Chavanel have been sentenced to compensate César Romero Pamparacuatro jointly and severally with 38,000 euros. In addition, it must also read the sentence issued "with the same cadence as the defamatory articles" on Radio Faycán.
"A true campaign to discredit the judge"
In the sentence, the Provincial Court explains that, in the present case, it is necessary to take into account "not only the class, seriousness and intensity of the injuries to the right to honor and professional prestige" of Pamparacuatro, but "very especially" the "high number of articles and programs in which they took place" and, above all, "the long and spaced duration in time of the actions of Mr. Chavanel"
Thus, the court considers that the injury to the honor of Pamparacuatro "does not occur in an occasional and unique way", but that, "due to its extension and frequency, it can be seen -as the judge of the instance does and is maintained in this appeal- the maintenance by the defendant Mr. Chavanel of a true campaign to discredit" the judge. And therefore, due to the "reiteration and duration in time of the articles and broadcasts" that are considered "harmful to the honor" of Pamparacuatro, it is why the Court has decided to raise the total amount of compensation to 162,000.
Three convictions on Chavanel for "false" and injurious" statements
It must be remembered that, the journalist Francisco Chavanel was also convicted of attacking the honor of prosecutor Ignacio Stampa with false information. In this case, the Court of First Instance Number 5 of Arrecife sentenced him to pay a compensation of 50,000 euros for the "discredit campaign" he carried out, both in his radio program and also with opinion articles published in Canarias 7 and Lancelot.
Likewise, Chavanel has a third conviction behind him for "false" and "injurious" statements about the Unión case in another lawsuit that was filed by businessman and former president of the PIL, Antonio Hernández, to whom Justice gave the reason setting a compensation for his person of 20,000 euros for the "unjustified attack against his honor" by the journalist.
