The
Constitutional Court
has endorsed the sentence imposed on the former councilor of Catarroja (Valencia)
Datxu Peris
for celebrating the death of the bullfighter
Víctor Barrio
the day after he died as a result of being caught
in the Teruel bullring
.
The magistrates affirm that freedom of expression does not cover expressions such as those made by the former mayor and rejects her appeal.
Peris wrote on Facebook that he considered it a
"positive" fact
that Barrio "
has already stopped killing
.
"
"I cannot feel sorry for the murderer who has died now any more than for all the corpses that he has left in his wake while he has lived," he wrote on July 10, 2016.
A court sentenced her to compensate
the Barrio family
with
7,000 euros
for violating the
right to honor
of the right-hander. The Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court ratified the decision, which the Constitutional Court now makes final. The TC emphasizes that, given the circumstances of the case, the expressions used were
"unnecessary, disproportionate
, as well as lacking any anchor in the exercise of the right to freedom of expression."
He adds that "in order to publicly defend his anti-bullfighting positions,
it was not necessary to qualify
Víctor Barrio
as a
murderer or oppressor
on the social network
and show relief at his death. Even less so by accompanying the text with a photograph showing the badly wounded bullfighter, in the moment in which he was gored, with evident
signs of pain
, and to publish that publication a few hours after he died as a result of that goring in the Teruel bullring, thereby causing added pain to that of his relatives ".
According to the TC, if the conduct is
harmful to the right to honor
outside the network, it is also in it. "Freedom of expression cannot be an instrument to undermine the dignity of the human being, since it stands as the foundation of political order and social peace." The Court understands that qualifying the bullfighter as a
"murderer"
or
"member of the group of oppressors"
should be considered without the slightest hint of doubt as "an interference in his right to honor, as it implies a loss of
personal reputation
, as well as a
denigration
of his prestige and professional activity, with direct affectation to his own consideration and individual dignity ".
For the First Chamber of the TC, the use of such expressions was not required or demanded by an
exercise of "pluralism", "tolerance" or "spirit of openness"
, support of any democratic society and freedom of expression. On the contrary, precisely those principles called for "greater restraint and restraint in order not to unjustifiably undermine the respect due to human dignity, the pain of family members and the honor of the deceased."
The sentence,
of which the magistrate Santiago Martínez-Vares has been rapporteur, has the private vote of the magistrate María Luisa Balaguer, who proposed to estimate the appeal of the former councilor. The magistrate saw it necessary to take into account "the peculiarities of the communication process in virtual environments." Regarding the
ruling, it
maintains that the message shared on Facebook had "an
undeniable political content
on a controversial issue in Spain, such as bullfighting, and that this political content, the real effects of the dissemination of the message and the profile on the social network of the appellant in amparo, and the fact that the defense of honor that acts as a limit to
freedom of expression
refers to a person already deceased, they should have been considered in such a way as to lead to the estimation of the appeal for protection ".
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