What media representatives managed to explain to senators has been undone. With the exception of four MPs, the entire Chamber of Deputies on Thursday overruled complaints from the Senate and approved an amendment to the penal code. Besides protecting crime victims, the code also protects the perpetrators and imposes sanctions for journalists who publicise the material of police wire-tapping.
Twenty years after the Czech Republic’s constitution guaranteed freedom of speech, this is the first law that is limits this freedom.
By coincidence, while the lower house voted on the penal code, there was also a meeting in Prague on the diversity of press, organised by the European Commission. Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, took part in the conference. When I informed him about what just happened, he frowned and said he couldn’t believe that in a moment when an international institution is holding talks on something as sensitive as diversity, Czech MPs still don’t seem to know the value of free speech. And want to impose legal sanctions on those informing the public. Incredible that something like this would happen in a democratic state! “Creating laws that limit the freedom of press is unacceptable,” said White.
Even though the press cannot overstep pre-set boundaries, namely, the protection of third parties, it is its responsibility to present information and opinions that are of public interest. The public, in turn, has the right to receive this information. According to the penal code amendment, we now do not have the right who was murdered and who did the killing. Is this normal?
After what happened in the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday, we must only hope that the president will not sign the amendment. If he does, we should turn to the Constitutional Court.
The author is the chairman of the Journalists Syndicate of the Czech Republic.
