It also ratifies the sentence for the association and for its director of publications in 2014, Luis Suárez
MADRID, 21 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Supreme Court (TS) has confirmed the conviction of the Association of Users of Financial Services (Ausbanc), its president, Luis Pineda, and its director of publications at the time of the events, Luis Suárez Jordana, for interference in the honor of a former head of social networks of the National Police when he published in 2014 a series of articles in the publication ‘Mercado de Dinero’ where they blamed him for a way of acting comparable to that followed by the Cuban CDR or the German SS.
In a sentence, collected by Europa Press, the magistrates have ratified the sentence of the Court of Madrid that sentenced the three defendants to jointly pay compensation of 5,000 euros to the plaintiff. Pineda, in addition, has confirmed another compensation of 1,000 euros for a series of tweets that repeated the articles and made more comments about the person in charge of Police networks.
Thus, the High Court has dismissed the appeals filed by Pineda and Suárez against the decision of the Madrid Court to convict them; and, in addition, has agreed to impose costs on the defendants.
The Supreme Court has assured that in this case “there is no justification” to say that the former chief of social networks of the Police was a member of a group that would have the objective of manipulating consumers and that, among other means, would use digital platforms to “harass, intimidate, annihilate and destroy the image of competitors as a mafia clan of thugs 2.0 who would remember the Cuban CDR or the German SS for their way of acting.”
In 21 folios, the Civil Chamber has explained that in this case the right to honor of the former chief of social networks of the Police prevails over the freedom of expression of Ausbanc, Pineda and Suárez.
The magistrates have considered that the litigious expressions, which constitute a value judgment or an opinion of the journalist author of the published articles, have a content that is not only objectively disqualifying, but also extremely infamous and attacking the plaintiff’s honor by attributing a way of acting comparable to that followed by the Cuban CDR or the German SS.
The court has stressed that such comparisons cannot be tolerated without a sufficient factual basis, something that, in the opinion of the magistrates, the aforementioned articles do not offer. For the Chamber, in this case “there is no sufficient factual basis to justify, in a minimally logical way, the conclusions reached in the published articles and the terms in which they are expressed.”
Regarding the tweets published by Pineda, which contained expressions such as “The police tweeter involved in a mafia plot with Facua”, the Supreme Court has concluded that the reiteration of the messages, the context in which they are posted and the comments that accompany to the reproduction of the articles show that their sole intention was to harm the plaintiff’s honor.
