The 3rd Panel of the (Superior Court of Justice) condemned two journalists and Istoé magazine to indemnify the minister, (Supreme Federal Court), at $ 150,000 for moral damages by report published in December 2017.
“There should be no confuse freedom of the press or expression with irresponsibility of affirmation,” said the rapporteur of the case, Minister Villas Bôas Cueva. In the decision last Monday (9), he was accompanied by Humberto Martins, Daniela Teixeira, Moura Ribeiro and Nancy Andrighi. It is up to appeal.
The STF dean filed the lawsuit in March 2018 against Editora Três, owner of Istoé, as well as the authors of the report entitled “Suspected Business”, Octavio Costa and Tábata Viapiana.
The ABI (Brazilian Press Association), chaired by Octávio Costa, issued a note stating that the decision is a macula to press freedom in the country and opens a preceding worrying.
“Upon reaching the president of ABI, one of the most important and respected institutions in the country, the STJ’s decision frontally reaches the press freedom itself, as it practically passes a message to the journalists and society that the members of the Supreme Court are untouchable and can turn against any professional who, fulfilling their craft, write about them, regardless of the reason. lower instances, “he says.
A Sheet He tried to contact the two journalists and has not yet been returned, and tried unsuccessfully to find some representative of Editora Três and the lawyer who represents them in the process.
The questioned report dealt with an investigation of administrative misconduct related to the sale of a magistrate’s family university in Diamantino to the government of Mato Grosso for R $ 7.7 million in 2013. The institution was founded by Gilmar and the sister, who remained one of the owners until the transaction.
The magazine states, in the text, having contacted the STF minister before the publication and that he confirmed that he was a partner of Uned until 2000, when he was appointed lawyer general of the Union. He said he had not had any participation in the sale of the educational institution.
Villas Bôas Cueva stated that the behavior assumed by journalists distances itself from the limits of the regular exercise of the right to inform and express their thinking and constitutes an aggression to the sphere of personality rights of the STF dean.
“The matter is permeated by ironies and insinuations that are clearly turned against the person of the author of the present demand, being clear to associate him, in a pejorative way, the image of someone who distances himself from ethics and only aims to safeguard personal benefits and favor nearby people,” says the judgment.
The STF minister had lost the dispute in the lower instances, but Gilmar appealed. Unanimously, the TJDFT (Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories) had stated that the text was within the limits of the right to free expression of communication activities, ensured by the Constitution.
