Supreme Court sentences children for illegal wiretapping of adulterous father with tape recorder in car
For the brothers there was an interest from Jehovah's Witnesses - the community to which the family belonged - to be informed about the poor morality of the followers
No right to chronicle authorises the children to spyon their father, placing arecorder in his car, to discover the adultery. For the boys, who had also come up with the idea of creating a wathsapp chat with the indicative but not very secret name of '007 Brothers', they were convicted of the offence of illegal installation of eavesdropping equipment. It is no use for the diligent James Bond to invoke the right of the press, as it would have been in their interest to make known within their religious community, that of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the poor morality of their father, who was having an extramarital affair.
The community's interest in morality cannot be protected
However, the Court of Cassation denies that there is a public interest in the news, although true, a requirement underlying the right to report the news. "There is no news reporting right to be balanced against the right to the reputation of the victims," reads the judgment, "because the public interest in the disclosure of news cannot be identified with that of the members of a religious community to know behaviours of its members which, although contrary to the community's own rules of conduct, do not constitute, for the State's legal system, criminal acts or unlawful facts, but only facts concerning the intimate life of the persons involved, the confidentiality of which, being particularly sensitive information, must be subject to the broadest protection'.
Not even close 'kinship' saves the investigators from conviction for the crime under Article 617bis of the Criminal Code. On the other hand, the appellants had their conviction overturned for defamation that had been imposed by the Court of Appeal for spreading the prurient news among the followers of the Hall of the Kingdom, of which the husband of the lady who had the liaison had also been informed.
Defamation excluded thanks to 'Elders'
An accusation that was dropped thanks to the"Elders"deputed to "shepherd" the flock of Jehovah's Witnesses who, availing themselves of their position as subjects comparable to Catholic priests, refused to revealthe source of the information about the betrayal. Thus, the circumstance that the 'scabrous' news was only spread by the statements of the plaintiffs' father's mistress. The latter, however, had merely assumed that it was the brothers who were the 'deep throat' that had uncovered the affaire de coeur. This was also because it was a fact that everyone in the community was aware of.
