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Incompetent lawyers speak for Panama
In recent days we have seen two of the leading lights in Panama's
legal system attacking the press on the national and international stages.
Government and Justice Minister Winston Spadafora has proposed a controversial
new law to regulate journalism in Panama, and Attorney General Jose Antonio
Sossa recently denounced the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the
OAS special rapporteur for freedom of the press, Santiago Canton. Both men
presume that they have the ability and right to distinguish a "real journalist"
from an imposter, but really, the main thing that they demonstrated is that
they are bottom-of-the-barrel lawyers.
In a La Prensa interview, Sossa dismissed Santiago Canton's
and the Inter-American Human Rights Commssion's suggestions that Panama deal
with libel and slander cases as a matter of civil law, rather than as criminal
matters. "It's an invention of the rapporteur, an invention of the commission,"
Sossa said. "Where does this come from? Who invented this?," he
asked.
Actually, most democracies deal with defamation as a civil
rather than a criminal matter, and most erect evidentiary or procedural barriers
that make it harder for a public official to win a libel or slander case than
for an ordinary citizen to do so. While it is true that the Civil Code tradition,
of which Panamanian law is a part, has traditionally provided criminal penalties
for defamation, many nations whose legal systems are founded in this form
of law have decriminalized libel and slander, either in practice or by statute.
Along with Cuba, Panama stands as a rare example in the Americas of governments
whose officials frequently use criminal defamation laws to intimidate the
press.
So here we have an attorney general who argued international
and comparative law with the experts, and who didn't do his homework. Sossa's
failure to recognize that the treatment of defamation as a civil matter is
common in the Americas would get him a failing grade in most law schools'
introductory comparative law classes. His failure to adequately research his
arguments with Canton and the commission is flat-out legal malpractice.
When drafting a legal document, an attorney owes his or her
client the duty to understand the subject matter that the document concerns.
The competent drafting of legal documents is narrow and precise, because vague
wording is an invitation to costly litigation that could be avoided. Our minister
of government and justice, however, has not only shown his totalitarian mentality
via the proposed press law that he is sending to the Legislative Assembly,
he has shown that, even with all the attorneys at his disposal at the ministry,
he is incompetent as a legal draftsman.
Who is defined as a "journalist" under the proposal
drafted by Spadafora? "The requirement for qualification as a profession
journalists, under the terms of this Law, shall extend to those who participate
in the production of content for electromagnetic media, as well as to photographers
and video camera operators and all other personnel who shall, as technological
requirements progress, become necessary for the publication of information,"
the draft law says. If he knew anything about how the news business operates,
he'd have known that editors, publishers, program directors, graphics design
artists and others are commonly involved in the production of news content
in both the print and the electronic media. He'd also know that the print
media are largely produced by electromagnetic means.
This is but one vague aspect of an extremely vague law, one
that will be impossible to enforce but leave open all sorts of intended and
unintended means for corrupt public officials to harass the people whose job
it is to report upon said officials' actions. For example, it appears that
by way of articles 8 and 18(c) of the proposed law, foreign correspondents
will only be able to work here temporarily, and only then when the University
of Panama journalism school --- which has an abysmal reputation in the world
of journalism --- approves of their credentials.
And how would the University of Panama improve its journalism
program? By having a student newspaper, of course, like Harvard has the Crimson,
Columbia the Spectator, and the University of Michigan the Michigan Daily.
Spadafora's draft law would appear to prohibit the establishment of a press
staffed by students, but then article 7, paragraph 1 of said law would seem
to require journalism students to illegally work in the production of news
content.
The bottom line is that Spadafora's draft press law is incompetently
written, even for those who agree with its nefarious ends. No client should
have to pay for such shoddy legal work.
So now Sossa and Spadafora pretend to tell the media who's
a journalist and who's not, and how we should do our jobs, but in doing so
they have shown the world their own woeful inability in the practice of their
own profession.
