VERBAL COMMISSION AGAIN IN CROATIA?

AIM, ZAGREB, September 20, 1997

The Croatian journalists will be punished even when they write the truth! The return of the verbal commission! The law against freedom of opinion! These are some of the titles published last week in the independent Croatian papers in the finish of the adoption of the new criminal code. Still, at the eleventh hour, probably not only because of the independent press, the Croatian Government withdrew some formulations which described the criminal offence of slander and label.

It turned out on Friday afternoon, when the Parliament usually enacts new laws that the Government gave up on the version according to which a person accused of slander was to be acquitted if he proved the truthfulness of his claim, but would at the same time be automatically punished for a lesser offence, insult, by a fine or a sentence up to six months in prison. State officials and politicians are the ones who most frequently sue journalists for slander and insult, demanding astronomic amounts in compensations for the so called emotional anguish they have, allegedly suffered.

Minister of Justice, Miroslav Separovic announced that the form already existing in the Criminal Law will be retained: if the truthfulness of a statement which a plaintiff claims to constitute an insult (in other words, untruth which can harm one's honour and reputation), is proved than the accused cannot be punished for slander. This is somewhat more lenient and it is up to the court to decide on such cases. The accused is additionally protected by a provision according to which he may be acquitted if a statement or a text with insulting contents was presented in a scientific, literary or artistic work, in carrying out journalistic work or while discharging a political or some other public function. However, the manner of expression and other circumstances must state it clearly that a journalist, writer or speaker had no intention of harming someone's honour or reputation.

Just before this law was passed, the Croatian Association of Journalists alerted the public drawing its attention to this and some other attempts of the new law to jeopardize the achieved level of the freedom of public speech. They noticed, for example, the intention to more strictly sanction the spreading of false information. This regulation very much resembles the one commonly called "verbal commission" and reads: Anyone who, with the intention of alarming the public, spreads information knowing them to be false and likely to cause such alarm shall be punished by six months in prison. This criminal offence attracted the attention of the public about a month ago when the Public Prosecutor's Office launched investigation against Ivan Zvonimir Cicak and Dobroslav Paraga, claiming that they had disturbed the public with their statements.

In his interview Cicak, President of the Croatian Helsinki Committee accused Tudjman of having made a deal with Milosevic and of dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina. Paraga, President of a small Croatian Party of the Right 1861 - which was according to the same pattern, persecuted by the previous one-party authorities same as it is persecuted now by the new multi-party ones - brought charges against the President of Croatia before the Hague Tribunal for the same reasons. Charges for spreading false information have not yet been pressed and most probably will never be, just as it happened several times before in similar cases. Through TV and other mass media under their control, the authorities simply inform of the "opening of investigative procedure", or announce "investigation", etc. thereby creating an atmosphere which should serve to exert pressure on and silence the critics.

The new Criminal Law went a step further with the aim of making the sentencing for spreading false information easier: the prosecutor would no longer have to prove the intention to alarm. However, as a reaction to protests of a part of journalistic and opposition public - and more probably, the pending inspection of the Council of Europe which will soon examine the results achieved during one year of Croatia's membership in that institution - the incrimination for false information was somewhat reduced. It was renamed into "the spreading of false rumours" and now the prosecutor will have to prove that the perpetrator was aware that he was spreading false rumours and did it with the intention (which is otherwise hard to prove) of causing alarm, as well as that he indeed alarmed broader public.

It is interesting that initiators of stricter measures tried to prove how they actually had nothing against journalists and the public, but only wanted to introduce provisions which even the "developed European countries" have. The catch is that these countries rather differ from "new democracies" as regard judicial practice. Laws of some European countries and, as of last year, of Croatia again, contain a provision according to which the public prosecutor, ex officio, institutes proceedings when he estimates that someone has slandered or insulted presidents of state, government, parliament and highest courts. However, it did not cross the minds of public prosecutors of these countries for quite a while to prosecute critically inclined journalists.

On the other hand, in Croatia no sooner had these provisions been incorporated into the law than the Public Prosecutor brought charges against journalists of "Feral Tribune" for allegedly slandering and insulting President Tudjman. Strong foreign and domestic support to the "Feral" team which was only stating an opinion by criticizing Tudjman's idea on changing the purpose of the Jasenovac monument, encouraged the judge to bring an acquitting sentence in the first instance. However, the trial is not over yet: a court of higher instance has returned the decision for reconsideration.

Now for spreading false news, i.e. rumours, Vladimir Seks, Vice-President of the Parliament, proposed Austrian or German model which are almost forgotten in the practice of these countries. Seks also referred to judicial practice which should, allegedly, establish a balance in the relations between the freedom of the media and their responsibility for public expression. At the same time, the authorities have organized purges in order to place the judiciary under their control. The Criminal Law also contains a regulation according to which in addition to the person who allowed the disclosing of a state secret, the person who publishes the contents of that secret shall also be punished. In this case there was no help from invoking world and European experiences - that in those countries criminalisation of the act of disclosing a secret is avoided because after it has "leaked" the information in question is no longer a secret. Naturally, a broader definition of the state, military and official secrets was forthwith enacted in a new law.

The result of the game between the authorities and the media is still a tie, although the media have scored several goals these days: on account of some discoveries of the press several officials had to resign - the Minister of Tourism (the prize for the state tourist slogan "accidentally" went to his wife) and the Director of HINA, state press agency, because as a side job he ran a private publishing business, which also published a pornographic magazine "Eros". The statement of Miro Bajramovic, Tomislav Mercep's soldier, on war crimes of his unit, published in the "Feral" resulted in numerous new articles in the papers. The authorities will never manage to patch up all the holes...

IGOR VUKIC