Web activists and social centre win libel case
01 March 2004
On 19 January 2004, a judge in Rome found in favour of the web server Isole nella Rete and of the La Strada social centre in Rome, the defendants in a libel case brought by former Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI, the predecessor of Alleanza Nazionale, which is part of the current governing coalition) MP Giulio Caradonna. Caradonna, who was ordered to pay Isole nella Rete 3,000 Euros for litigation costs, had sued the web server and social centre in May 2001 for 250 million Lire (c.125,000 euros). A dossier drafted by La Strada, which examined the development of neo-fascism in Italy after world war two, and was posted on its website, hosted on the Isole nella Rete server, stated that "in via Torino vi era un'altra sezione del MSI (sede principale dei mazzieri della banda Caradonna) da cui partivano le spedizioni contro gli studenti del Giulio Cesare, del Tasso, dell'Avogadro, del Righi e del Plinio" ["in via Torino there was another MSI party office (the headquarters of the club-wielders of the Caradonna gang from where the expeditions against students from the Giulio Cesare, the Tasso, the Avogadro, the Righi and the Plinio [schools] were launched"]. Caradonna filed the lawsuit, arguing that the news in question was libelous, harming his honour, career and public profile, lacking in current public interest, and that it contravened privacy legislation and his right to oblivion (forgetting about events in the past). Isole nella Rete was also accused of failing to adequately control the contents hosted on its server.
Isole nella Rete (La Strada did not defend itself in court) argued that it was not subject to press libel legislation in this instance, which was covered by the right to report information and to express criticism, and that neither the allegation of failing to control contents, nor the alleged contravention of data protection legislation, applied. Isole nella Rete's legal counsel also noted that its "raison d'être is to provide Internet service to social and movement groups to favour the right of freedom of expression and, among other things to affirm the principles of the anti-fascist struggle".
The judge of the civil court which heard the case ruled that the damage claim was "unfounded", as under the freedom to report information the statement in question fulfils the criteria to be considered legal "first of all the truthfulness of what is reported", as well as being the result of "A serious documentation work, diligent and accurate, consisting in the acquisition and comparative evaluation of several sources for the news...from the examination of which, it appears reasonable to draw the conviction of the complete veracity, or at least the clear likelihood, of the statement in question". The judgement highlighted that it would have been enough for the news to "have been reported in good faith". It also dismissed Caradonna's arguments in defence of his data protection rights and the right to oblivion, because as a politician, he is a public figure, and the public has a right to know every detail of his political life (past or present). Finally, the judge also found that the tone in which the news was reported was measured, and that the use of the term mazziere (literally "club-wielder" explained by the judge as an expression meaning a violent thug from an extremist political group, particularly of the right) does not appear "exorbitant" when tested against the documentation.
Caradonna was a leading figure in the MSI and an MP from 1958 to 1994, as well as figuring on the list of members of P2 (no. 909), a clandestine masonic lodge with influential members, found to have links with right wing terrorism and conspiracies during the "years of lead" by an Italian parliamentary commission.
Text of the sentence, Tribunale di Roma, Sentenza n. 3687, 2978/04: http://www.ecn.org/inr/caradonna/sentenza.html. Dossier on the Caradonna case: http://www.ecn.org/inr/caradonna. The report "Da piazzale Lore