Portugal President vetoes statute that threatened journalists' rights

Portugal President Anibal Cavaco Silva has vetoed the new Journalist Statute which threatened journalists’ rights to protect their sources and undermined their authors’ rights.

The Portuguese Union of Journalists just started a protest action against Portuguese media group Controlinvest who, anticipating the effects of the law, announced the publication from September of a free newspaper made with the works of the journalists of the group and asked journalists in the most important newspapers of the group to sign away their rights.

The law said that courts investigating offences such as threats to state security and organised crime may order journalists to disclose their confidential sources, merely on the grounds that it would be difficult to obtain information by other means. The President of Portugal acknowledged that this provision contradicted provisions of the Code Criminal of Procedure on professional secrecy, leading to legal insecurity in a field he himself described as “particularly delicate to the journalist’s activity”.

“We salute the President’s reaction to this statute, which will protect press freedom and quality in Portugal,” said Arne König, European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) Chair. “We know call on the Portuguese Parliament to review the Journalist Statute in line with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which has underpinned the notion of the journalists’ right to protect their sources as a “cornerstone of press freedom.”

The Portuguese Union of Journalists, with the support of EFJ, had called on the President of Portugal not to sign the new Statute, which was adopted by the Portuguese Parliament on June 21, into effect. The journalist law will be debated again in Parliament in September.

EFJ also called on the Portuguese Parliament to remove a provision allowing employers to use the works of staff journalists in any manner within their media holdings during a period of 30 days following the date of first publication and without any additional payment.

The Portuguese Union of Journalists just started a protest action against Portuguese media group Controlinvest who, anticipating the effects of the law, announced the publication from September of a free newspaper made with the works of the journalists of the group and asked journalists in the most important newspapers of the group to sign away their rights.

“This case shows how the provision adopted in June would prevent journalists from receiving fair payment for re-use of their work and weaken journalists’ essential rights to determine where their work is re-used”, said König.