The Supreme Court has ratified another conviction for journalist Francisco Chavanel, this time for violating the right to honor of businessman and former president of the PIL, Antonio Hernández, with his "false" information about the Unión case.
Chavanel was already convicted in 2018 by the Court of First Instance number one of Arrecife in a ruling that a year later was confirmed by the Provincial Court and now by the Supreme Court. According to the same, the journalist must compensate Antonio Hernández with 20,000 euros.
Hernández sued Chavanel after he referred to him on his radio program as a protected witness, trying to link him with the judge and the prosecutor who initiated the case and even suggesting that he received preferential treatment in exchange for alleged considerations that never existed.
"The intrusion into the honor of the plaintiff is illegitimate"
The Court of First Instance considered that the facts stated by Chavanel were "false", that they "exceeded the scope protected by the freedoms of information and opinion" and that they constituted "an illegitimate intrusion into the right to honor" of Hernández.
"The information transmitted regarding the plaintiff has been revealed to be false and there is no evidence that the appellant had attempted to verify it according to professional diligence standards. It was, therefore, the dissemination of rumors and unfounded allegations about the plaintiff's participation in a conspiracy that would have given rise to the Unión case," the Supreme Court now responds to a new appeal by Chavanel, who has been arguing that the questioned statements did not communicate facts, but rather expressed value judgments and opinions.
"These were facts that implied a serious discredit for the plaintiff, which questioned his moral integrity and attributed to him the commission of unlawful acts, if not crimes, and therefore constituted an intrusion into his right to honor. As they are not truthful, since it is not recorded that the defendant acted diligently to verify that his statements corresponded to reality, the intrusion into the honor of the plaintiff is illegitimate," adds the Supreme Court.
Initially, the lawsuit of the former president of the PIL, Antón Hernández, was also directed against the publisher of Canarias 7, where Chavanel wrote an article against him. However, the judgment of first instance acquitted the newspaper, considering that only its author should be responsible for the content, as it was an opinion article where assumptions and value judgments predominate, and Hernández did not appeal that ruling.
Chavanel's other two convictions
It should be remembered that Chavanel was also convicted, along with the media outlets Lancelot and Canarias 7, for damaging the right to honor of César Romero Pamparacuatro, the judge who initiated the Unión case. In this case, the defendants were sentenced by the Supreme Court to pay compensation of 44,000 euros for their "defamatory" attacks against Pamparacuatro, setting the compensation for the production company of Chavanel's program at 30,000 euros.
Likewise, Francisco Chavanel was also convicted for attacking the honor of prosecutor Ignacio Stampa with false information. In this case, the Provincial Court of Las Palmas set compensation of 25,000 euros plus interest, after being convicted in the first instance.
