The Supreme Court has ratified the convictions of journalist Francisco Chavanel and the media outlets Lancelot and Canarias 7 for violating the right to honor of César Romero Pamparacuatro, the judge who initiated the Unión case. However, the high court has reduced to 44,000 the total compensation that must be paid to the magistrate for the "defamatory" attacks they directed against him.
The Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife set compensations for a total of 162,000 euros, almost quadrupling the amount that the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 3 of Puerto de la Cruz set in the first instance, after Judge César Romero Pamparacuatro appealed said sentence claiming a higher compensation. However, the ruling of the Court was appealed by the defendants before the Supreme Court, which has partially upheld their appeals, reducing the compensation to the 44,000 euros that were set in the first instance.
Specifically, El Escorpión de Jade S.L., producer of Chavanel's radio program 'El Espejo Canario', must compensate César Romero Pamparacuatro with 30,000 euros, while the publishing company of Canarias 7, Informaciones Canarias S.A., must do so in the amount of 6,000 euros.
Editorial Lancelot is imposed a compensation of 5,000 euros and Faycán Publicidad of 3,000. The journalist himself must be jointly and severally liable for all these amounts.
Through all these media, Francisco Chavanel directed attacks against Pamparacuatro and against all the judges, prosecutors and UCO agents who intervened in the largest corruption case in Lanzarote and one of the largest in the Canary Islands, trying to discredit it.
"The requirement of veracity is required."
In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Chavanel defended his right to freedom of expression, arguing that what he had transmitted were "opinions and personal assessments, not information" and that, therefore, it was not correct to demand the requirement of veracity.
"These arguments are not accepted," responds the Supreme Court, which considers that Chavanel also transmitted information both in his interventions in the radio program and in his articles published in Canarias 7 and Lancelot Digital, to which "the requirement of veracity is indeed required".
In this sense, the Supreme Court affirms that "there is no evidence whatsoever" to support Chavanel's accusations against the judge, whom he accused of having participated "in a political conspiracy" led by the PSOE to initiate the investigation of both the Unión case and to incriminate Fernando Clavijo in the Corredor case.
Likewise, the high court highlights that there is also no evidence that Pamparacuatro met with PSOE leaders and asked them for help because the General Council of the Judiciary was going to open a disciplinary file against him, as the journalist also stated. In this regard, the Supreme Court points out that "not only has he not provided the photographs that he claimed existed" of a meeting of the judge with the socialist Carlos Espino, "but in the trial he admitted that he had not even seen them".
The Supreme Court also affirms that "there is no evidence that in the 'Unión' case the defendants had been detained or held incommunicado for longer than legitimately allowed" as Chavanel also assured, who also affirmed "repeatedly" that the General Council of the Judiciary had opened a file against Pamparacuatro for his actions in the 'Unión' case that never existed.
"He limited himself to spreading simple rumors or inventions"
"The facts object of these informations were susceptible to be contrasted. However, Mr. Chavanel did not contrast them. There is no evidence that they are truthful and, on the contrary, some of them are denied by the evidence practiced", points out the Supreme Court, which considers that Chavanel "limited himself to spreading simple rumors or inventions that discredited the judicial processes that were followed on certain cases of corruption, in which some politicians of the Canary Islands were involved, for which he defamed those who participated in the investigation and the instruction of such cases".
With respect to the accusations he launched against César Romero Pamparacuatro, the Supreme Court considers that they supposed "a serious professional and even personal discredit for the judge, which questioned his moral integrity and his professional capacity, which in many cases supposed attributing to him the commission of crimes and, therefore, supposed an intrusion into his right to honor".
Chavanel's other two convictions
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 Provincial Court of Las Palmas set a compensation of 25,000 euros plus interest, after being convicted in the first instance.
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.
