Italy. Libel. How difficult is it to have the plaintiff prosecuted for slander

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Two Public Prosecutor’s Office, each one faced with a lawsuit with untrue accusations, proceeded in very different manner, one for calumny, the other dismissing the case

OSSIGENO September 23^rd  2024 – The conviction for slander, on appeal, of the banker Leodino Galli (former councillor of the loan agency Spoleto Credito e Servizi), guilty of having made  false accusations in a lawsuit against the Spoleto journalist Carlo Ceraso, demonstrates that the judiciary, applying the laws in force, in addition to dismissing the lawsuit can proceed against the complainant by charging him with this serious offence of knowingly accusing another person of a misdeed with untrue evidence. It rarely happens, because although the guilty party’s justifications are usually met with contempt, their behaviour contributes to making the problem of unfounded and specious defamation lawsuits against thousands of Italian journalists enormous (even if 90 per cent are acquitted).

The ruling of the Court of Appeal of Perugia, which on September 17^th 2024 confirmed Leodino Galli’s suspended sentence of  one year and four months of imprisonment provides the opportunity to return to the subject to which Ossigeno per l’Informazione has already drawn attention on other occasions.

THE CERASO CASE – After having his lawsuit in relation to some news published by Carlo Ceraso on the Tuttoggiwebsite dismissed, Leodino Galli was tried for calumny on the initiative of the Spoleto Public Prosecutor’s Office, for having sued the journalist for libel. The same prosecutor had initiated the original proceedings against the plaintiff. The news of the offence emerged from the proceedings that concluded with the dismissal of the lawsuit as it transpired that the reconstruction of the event contained in the initial lawsuit did not correspond to the truth.

THE CASE OF LEANDRO SALVIA – In a similar case, that of the Sicilian journalist Leandro Salvia, sued by a lawyer who was a candidate for mayor in the municipality of San Cipirrello, things went differently. After having ascertained that the accusations did not correspond to the truth, the public prosecutor, with the consent of the preliminary investigative judge, dismissed the lawsuit but did not acknowledge the calumny. The journalist therefore sued the plaintiff for calumny. He did so with the support of the Legal Aid Desk of Ossigeno per l’Informazione and Media Defence who shared its assessments and the opportunity to raise the case. As a consequence another legal proceeding was opened that the public prosecutor, with the consent of the judge, decided to dismiss  despite the reasoned opposition of the journalist and his defence lawyer, Andrea di Pietro.

In this case, the assessment prevailed that the plaintiff lawyer had no calumnious intentions and that it was not clear to her that by presenting untrue accusations she was committing calumny. The journalist and Ossigeno made the objection that since she was a practising lawyer she should have had that awareness. But this and other objections did not prevent the case from being dismissed.

WHAT IS NECESSARY – The comparison between the two cases brings one back to the initial considerations. Certainly, the independent judgment of each judge deserves respect. But faced with the flood of specious lawsuits many of them advanced with untrue accusations, an open discussion and a clearer jurisprudential orientation with respect to these events would be useful. ASP