After a Court in Mexico City ruled a lawsuit in favor of former Coahuila Governor Humberto Moreira Valdés against investigator Sergio Aguayo, for alleged moral damage, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mexico (UN-DH) expressed concern about the ruling, as it considers that freedom of expression is violated.
The international body considered that the ruling of Judge José Huber Olea Contró, who ordered the professor of the College of Mexico (Colmex) to compensate the former governor with 10 million pesos, classified the amount as exorbitant, and stressed that it is a decision that can intimidate journalistic exercise.
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“The sentence can seriously affect freedom of expression in Mexico, in particular because of the exorbitant amount ordered to pay an academic and journalist. The press’ cautious reaction to this sentence may be a sign of this intimidating effect,” said Jan Jarab, UN-DH’s representative in Mexico.
The fact that the former national president of the PRI sued Aguayo for claiming that the former person was liable, at least by omission, for serious human rights violations perpetrated under his management, may have “a silencing effect for future points out about the actions of public officials,” UN-DH said.
#Comunicado? UN-DH: Sentence to Sergio Aguayo demonstrates the urgency of adapting the regulatory framework for the protection of the right to honor and reputation ? https://t.co/TPn9hRbdEL pic.twitter.com/MTLxKYulTR
— UN-DH Mexico (@ONUDHmexico) October 17, 2019
The agency considered that the case adds up a long list of lawsuits and sentences for crimes against “honour and reputation”, promoted against critical voices, so it called for law on the issue.
“International standards are clear and determine that civil procedures must include criteria that prevent protection of honor and reputation, assets protected by regional and universal human rights systems, from becoming a tool of censors those who investigate and report on the conduct of public servants,” Jan Jarab argued.
Meanwhile, Aguayo Quesada said that he will continue to investigate the criminal violence in that entity during the management of the expriist and that he will seek protection against the sentence.
Read more: Journalist Sergio Aguayo wins lawsuit for “moral damage” to former governor Humberto Moreira
“We leave in the direct protection of federal justice. Chances are we’ll win it, but from there Moreira will insist on going to the Supreme Court. They will end up being four or five years of an absurd story because the lawsuit should never have been accepted,” he told the Notimex agency.
In January 2016, when former governor Moreira Valdés was arrested in Spain, Sergio Aguayo published a column in which he noted that the expriist was detaching “corrupt stylist”.
“Moreira is a politician who sheds the corrupt stenact; that at best he was omissuated to terrible human rights violations committed in Coahuila, and who is finally a standard-bearer of the renowned Mexican impunity,” he wrote then.
The former governor’s response was to sue him on the grounds that that publication had damaged his honor and reputation, so he demanded a public apology and payment of 10 million pesos.
The lawsuit was filed in Civil Court 15 of the Superior Court of Justice (TSJDF) and a judge ruled in aguayo’s favor and ruled that Moreira failed to substitle the alleged moral damage, before which he filed an appeal in the sixth civil chamber that overturned the anteri sentence.
With information from Notimex
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