Ban on publication orders: journalists and publishers risk harsher sanctions

Wider perimeter and harsher sanctions for journalists and editors. The shock opinion voted yesterday by the Justice Committee of the Senate (but an identical text is being discussed today by the Camera) on the legislative decree passed a few weeks ago by the Council of Ministers, which reintroduces the prohibition to publish, even in excerpts, the custodial custody orders and the interceptions attached to them. A measure taken in implementation of the proxy subject of the now proverbial Costa amendment contained in the European delegation law, no. 15 of 2024.

The committee, in the form of observations, places in the hands of the Ministry of Justice the possibility of tightening the sanctioning apparatus both on the side of journalists, for whom it is nevertheless made clear that imprisonment is to be avoided, and of publishers. The aim is to make the publication ban, considered a necessary corollary to the presumption of innocence of suspects and defendants, effective, noting the ineffectiveness of the current system.

The opinion then emphasises the 'tried and tested ineffectiveness' of the current contravention outlined in Article 684 of the Criminal Code, 'which is resolved in the possibility of extinguishing the offence through oblation with the payment of a derisory sum' and, even more so, of the disciplinary offence that is imposed on public employees (e.g. magistrates and judicial police officers) .

Tightening up, the opinion states, can then also pass through the use of new instruments, and is exemplified by reference to the sanctions provided for in Decree 231 of 2001, the provision that introduced the liability of entities for a now long list of offences committed by employees, offences from the commission of which the entity has benefited or had an interest. This paves the way for very severe measures against publishers and legitimises their increasingly strong interference in journalistic work through the development of those organisational models that, if adopted and applied, can shelter entities from sanctions.

More. The opinion calls for - but on this point the consistency with the delegation of powers must be verified, a point which, however, did not hold back the majority - a widening of the perimeter of the measures subject to the prohibition of publication. In fact, the technical reasons underlying the prohibition for custody orders are then the same as those that should prevent the publication of all personal precautionary measures and all anological measures that may be issued in the precautionary proceedings.