7 NGOs ask Parliament to reject President Voronin's initiative

Seven NGOs dealing with media and human rights ask the parliamentarians to reject the initiative of the head of the state to change the Civil Code concerning the reparation of damages caused by slander. If the modification is passed, simply publishing a denial will represent for the plaintiff the reparation of the moral damage. In an open letter, sent to the Parliament on June 27, the signing organizations maintain that the modifications as proposed by Vladimir Voronin would encourage the slanderous statements and will worsen the quality of the public debates in general, leading to media misinforming and to violating the public's right to be informed. The result of passing the draft will be more condemnations by the European Court of Human Rights as to Moldova, reads the appeal. The signatories draw the attention that the Parliamentary Assembly's Resolution no. 1165 (1998) recommends the CoE member states to find a means to balance the exercise of the two fundamental rights: the right to the respect for private life and the right to the freedom of expression. It recommends to pass laws allowing persons to file law-suits and to ask for possible reparation of damages for violating the private life. The NGOs' members say modifying the law according to the President's proposals would lead to many severe cases of commissioned or haphazard slander and would stimulate the appearance of scandal publications to the detriment of the good-faith and responsible mass-media. The open letter is signed by the Independent Journalism Center, the Independent Press Association, the Lawyers for Human Rights Association, the Acces-info Center, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights from Moldova, the League for the Defense of Human Rights from Moldova and the Association for Promotion of Legal Clinics.