Sao Paolo police have recaptured Wilson de Moraes da Silva, who was convicted of the murder of journalist Ivandel Godinho Junior. The reporter was kidnapped in 2003, and killed three days later. Silva had served three years of his 36 year sentence when he was transferred to a prison with restricted release privileges. He failed to return to the prison after his release for Father’s Day in 2008.
The scandal caused by the banning of the documentary Presunto Culpable Presumed Guilty has given a shot of life to Mexicans. On Wednesday, after a legal battle of several days, the film was again allowed to be shown to the public.
The Sixth Collegiate Tribunal for Administrative Matters dictated that to stop showing the film caused “serious offence to society” and went against the public order. The legal demand was also used by the film producers to suggest to Mexico City that it open tribunals to cameras. The challenge was taken up by media conscious Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, who said his government is studying ways in which cameras can be installed in Mexico City tribunals.
Mexico City is in the process of modifying its judicial system, introducing oral trials. Future criminal procedures will be conducted in oral trials without a jury, but open to the public. This change will make prosecutors,
defense attorneys, and judges more accountable and the system more transparent. Currently the trials are supposed to be public, but the real trial is actually conducted — in advance of the formal judicial proceedings — by the prosecutor.
Edgar San Juan, producer and writer of the Presumed Guilty, said the only thing that was gained with the censoring of the film was a shot of money to pirates, who made and sold thousands of copies of the film on the streets of Mexican cities.
The film focuses on the trial of an innocent man who is framed by police and investigators and charged with a murder he did not commit. While the film depicts the system in Mexico City, it has touched a chord among Mexican audiences because it proved something that every citizen in Mexico suspects of its judicial system. This was the first time that filmmakers were allowed inside a tribunal. The film was banned because the main witness potrayed in the film said it had violated his privacy.
At a rally in parliament yesterday, MPs and Peers responded to the Libel Reform Campaign’s blueprint for reform in advance of the publication of the Government’s defamation bill next week, saying this is a ‘once in a lifetime chance’ to radically reform the laws. Read the blueprint, What should a defamation bill contain?, here.
Lord Bach, Opposition Spokesperson for Justice, said that “reform of the defamation laws is clearly a cause whose time has come. This is a campaign that has massive support. I congratulate the Libel Reform Campaign on having got to this stage.”
His comments were echoed by other MPs and Peers.
David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, agreed that “we have a massive mandate for change here; there is no doubt about that. This is a once in a generation opportunity. If we get it wrong our children pay the consequences.”
Denis Macshane, MP for Rotherham, reiterated “this is not a once in a generation chance, but once in a lifetime. We cannot let this slip.”
Lord Willis of Knaresborough urged the campaign to continue to “use all of its might to make sure the Government’s bill is translated into real action.”
Lord Lester of Herne Hill said, “The problem for libel reform is we are not starting with a clean slate but with 300 years of case law.”
At a rally in parliament yesterday, MPs and Peers responded to the Libel Reform Campaign’s blueprint for reform in advance of the publication of the Government’s defamation bill next week, saying this is a ‘once in a lifetime chance’ to radically reform the laws. Read the blueprint, What should a defamation bill contain?, here.
Lord Bach, Opposition Spokesperson for Justice, said that “reform of the defamation laws is clearly a cause whose time has come. This is a campaign that has massive support. I congratulate the Libel Reform Campaign on having got to this stage.”
His comments were echoed by other MPs and Peers.
David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, agreed that “we have a massive mandate for change here; there is no doubt about that. This is a once in a generation opportunity. If we get it wrong our children pay the consequences.”
Denis Macshane, MP for Rotherham, reiterated “this is not a once in a generation chance, but once in a lifetime. We cannot let this slip.”
Lord Willis of Knaresborough urged the campaign to continue to “use all of its might to make sure the Government’s bill is translated into real action.”
Lord Lester of Herne Hill said, “The problem for libel reform is we are not starting with a clean slate but with 300 years of case law.”