Legal liability for leaking and
publishing wiretaps must be defined, but journalists should not
be the only ones to pay a price, a top Italian magistrate said
Monday.
"We should not blame the press, not jail journalists who
publish wiretaps," said Giovanni Legnini, the vice president of
the Italian judiciary's self-governing body, or tSupreme Council
of Magistrates (CSM).
"But the scope of the rules must be established....while
simultaneously defining the obligations and penalties for people
at all levels who do not live up to their responsibilities,"
Legnini said, speaking at a conference on journalists' rights
and obligations.
Whether journalists should be jailed or heavily sanctioned
for publishing classified court documents - which have often
fanned political scandal - has been a matter of political
wrangling under various Italian governments over the last
decade.
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