ROME - The Italian government have failed to act on the year given to them by the Constitutional Court to provide a new ruling on the current legislation regarding prison time for journalists convicted of defamation.

  A year after the Constitutional Court handed the issue over to the legislators in government, the Court will once again take it up, the government having done nothing, and in a public hearing on June 22, they will no doubt come to the foregone conclusion that it is unconstitutional that journalists can serve up to six years in prison for defamation.

  On June 22, 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled that Italian laws regarding defamation were not in line with the European Human Rights Court, and that prison sentences should only be given to journalists in cases of defamation which incites hatred or violence.

  The only thing that has changed since then is that the President of the Constitutional Court at the time, Marta Cartabia, is now the Minister of Justice. La Repubblica reports that several times Cartabia tried to raise the issue in the Senate, but could not drum up enough interest.

  Carlo Verna, president of the National Council of the Order of Journalists, said recently, “we would have preferred to deal with the issue of defamation in an organic way, including the issue of reckless lawsuits, but despite the warning of the Constitutional Court, at the time presided over by the current Minister of Justice, nothing was done.”

  The Constitutional Court described how the new laws must “combine the requirement to guarantee journalistic freedom” with the equally "pressing reasons for the protection of the reputation of victims of abuse by that freedom of journalists.” 

  Victims, the judges reasoned, “who are now exposed to even greater risks than in the past" due to the "effects of very rapid and lasting amplification of defamatory charges determined by social networks and internet search engines.”

  Journalists’ unions have noted how the outline of the new legislation was all but written in the Court’s ruling a year ago, but the government have ignored it.

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