{"id":11252,"date":"2011-12-07T14:25:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T14:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/france-efj-welcomes-legal-victory-on\/"},"modified":"2018-06-04T17:09:29","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T17:09:29","slug":"france-efj-welcomes-legal-victory-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/france-efj-welcomes-legal-victory-on\/","title":{"rendered":"France: EFJ Welcomes Legal Victory on Protection of Journalists\u2019 Sources"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nS.S.Dogra
<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThe European Federation of
\nJournalists (EFJ), today welcomed a major legal victory for protection of
\njournalists’ sources in France in the ongoing “Woerth-Bettencourt” case,
\na high-profile scandal mixing business and political financing.<\/p>\n

The Appeal Court (Cour de Cassation) ruled that judge Philippe Courroye, who
\ninitiated a procedure to identify information leaks in the
\n“Woerth-Bettencourt” case in September 2010, had infringed the law on
\nprotection of sources by trying to access detailed phone records of three
\njournalists working at the daily newspaper Le Monde. <\/i><\/p>\n

“We welcome a decision that is in line with case-law from the European
\nCourt of Human Rights,” said Arne K\u00f6nig, EFJ President. “Finally
\nFrench journalists can see a light at the end of the tunnel after many cases
\nthat have violated the principle of protection of sources in the country in
\nrecent months.”<\/p>\n

According to today’s ruling, “the infringement of the confidentiality of
\njournalists’ sources was not justified by the existence of an overriding public
\ninterest and the measure was not strictly necessary and proportionate to the
\nlegitimate aim pursued”.<\/p>\n

The EFJ now hopes that this decision will help other colleagues to enforce
\ntheir rights. A reporter for the Tribune<\/i> newspaper was summoned on 2
\nDecember 2011 by the French financial watchdog (Autorit\u00e9 des March\u00e9s
\nFinanciers, AMF) for information about the allocation of a railway contract in
\nApril 2010. Le Monde<\/i> journalists had also been subject to legal
\nproceedings in Marseille in which a prosecutor attempted to access telephone
\nrecords as part of a case relating to organised crime in Corsica.<\/p>\n

A French law of 2 January 2010 states that “the confidentiality of sources
\ncan be directly or indirectly affected only if an overriding public interest
\njustifies it”. The EFJ has made clear on several occasions that this law
\nmust be respected.<\/p>\n

Case-law from the European Court of Human Rights has also confirmed that protection
\nof sources is an essential element of press freedom.<\/p>\n

EFJ members in France are the Syndicat national des journalistes (SNJ), the
\nSyndicat national des journalistes SNJ-CGT and the USJ-CFDT.<\/p>\n

For more information, please contact EFJ on   + 32 2 235 22
\n00      <\/b>
\nThe EFJ is the European group of the International Federation of Journalists
\nThe EFJ represents more than 260,000 members in over 30 countries<\/i><\/div>\n

\n
<\/i><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S.S.Dogra The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), today welcomed a major legal victory for protection of journalists’ sources in France in the ongoing “Woerth-Bettencourt” case, a high-profile scandal mixing business and political financing. The Appeal Court (Cour de Cassation) ruled that judge Philippe Courroye, who initiated a procedure to identify information leaks in the “Woerth-Bettencourt” case in September 2010, had infringed the law on protection of sources by trying to access detailed phone records of three journalists working at the daily newspaper Le Monde. “We welcome a decision that is in line with case-law from the European Court of Human <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,66],"tags":[1879],"class_list":["post-11252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-update","category-useful-informations","tag-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44161,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11252\/revisions\/44161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}