President pays a visit to editorial staff of “Saptamana” newspaper

President Vladimir Voronin visited Wednesday November 8 the editorial staff of the “Saptamana” (“The Week”) newspaper. According to a press release of the Presidency, head of state got familiarized with the activity conditions of the editorial staff and met the members of the creation team. During the dialogue with the journalists of “Saptamana”, President mentioned that, as head of state, he meets the staff members of an opposition press body for the first time. The goal of this meeting was to make a large exchange of opinions as regards the problems that the opposition press and mass media on the whole face. According to the same source, Voronin emphasized the utterly important role of the opposition and press opposition in a democratic society, denoting that “signals, objective and constructive criticisms, launched by them, are really necessary for making the government’s activity efficient and extremely useful in edifying the young Moldovan state”. Vladimir Voronin inquired the “Saptamana” journalists’ opinion regarding the situation related to the press freedom in Moldova and was ensured by the weekly’s chief editor Viorel Mihail that the members of the editorial staff are fully free in their creation activity and opinion expression. In addition, he reminded that, on the initiative of the head of state, the Parliament excluded from the old penal Code the article 7 regarding non-pecuniary damages, caused by libel, which was used as instrument for putting pressures on mass-media. It was also denoted that the Parliament has recently completed the article 16 from the Civil Code, “Defense of honor, dignity and professional reputation”, stipulating the reasonability of the moral damages, as well as the conditions under which they are determined. The President said he is willing to back other initiatives as well, intended to perfect the legislation related to this chapter. Vladimir Voronin also reminded that during his office as President, he has never sued newspapers or other press bodies for the critical comments on him, assuring that this thing will not happen further as well.