Article 19, NVO iz Londona (koja promovira slobodu izražavanja  i slobodu informiranja  u cijelom svijetu zatražila je  status Amicus curiae pred Međunarodnim kaznenim sudom za bivšu Jugoslaviju u predmetu protiv Florence Hartmann. 5.11.2009, Article 19 je  uložio podnesak koji izražava visok stupanj zabrinutosti  ove organizacije zbog presude Pretresnog vijeća od 14.09.2009. Podnesak ovdje ataširan je Article 19 podnio na vlastitu inicijativu. Article 19 smatra da presuda iz puno razloga izlazi iz  dobro utvrđenih pravila (standarda) međunarodnog pravosuđa  na području slobode izražavanja i ukoliko se potvrdi presedan,  ozbiljno narušava slobodu izražavanja u području međunarodnog kaznenog pravosuđa.

 Respectfully,
 
 Press Office 
 

PRESS RELEASE

24 SEPTEMBER 2009

FLORENCE HARTMANN APPEALS CONTEMPT CONVICTION

On 24 September, the Defence of Ms HARTMANN filed a Notice of Appeal against the judgment on allegation of Contempt, dated 14 September 2009, by which the French journalist and author was convicted of interference with the administration of justice (Contempt of court) by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for revealing details in relation with two confidential Appeals Chamber decisions issued in 2005 and 2006 in the case against Slobodan Milosevic. The Defence has also filed today a Motion for stay of payment of the 7000 Euro fine until the end of the Appeal procedure.

Over 100 errors identified in the judgment

Hartmann's Defense has outlined over 120 errors (of law and/or facts) committed by the specially appointed Chamber (the Trial Chamber).

The grounds of appeal of the Defence cover a broad range of errors from:

• the extensive reading of the charges adopted by the Trial Judges that has expanded the scope of the charges beyond those contained in the indictment and upon which the trial proceeded (after the Trial judges had acknowledged that the Four facts[1] which Ms Hartmann was alleged to have disclosed and on which the amicus Prosecutor focused his case were already in the public domain)
• the criminalization of  alleged disclosure of the "legal reasoning" which is not included  in R77 (Contempt of Court) which rendered the tribunal itself legally unaccountable by making impossible to verify the legality of its actions.
• the violation of Ms Hartmann's freedom of expression and that of the public (including victims) to receive information of public interest.
• the general disclaimer of international standards and the subsequent failure to apply the principles generally recognized by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) system and international human rights law and to consider the most relevant issues as:
  - unrestricted publicity of any proceedings in a criminal trial;
  - special and increased protection guaranteed by international law to journalists in the exercise of their freedom of expression.
  - special or increase protection guaranteed to the discussion of issues of public or general interest by international law in the context of the exercise of freedom of expression.
• the abused of the Judges' discretion by giving undue and disproportionate weight to the interests of states at the expense of the fundamental rights of Ms Hartmann, of the public and of the victims.
• several facts pertaining to the conclusion of the Trial Chamber that Ms Hartmann intentionally and knowingly violated court orders.
• the Trial Chamber's failure to set aside the record of decisions rendered by a Chamber that had been said to lack appearance of impartiality and two of its judges disqualified
• the failure to consider and address the Defence suggestion of a "selective prosecution" against Ms Hartmann and the mountain of evidence provided to that effect.

The Defence is requesting that the Appeals Chamber overturns the Judgment of the Trial Chamber and acquits Ms Hartmann of all charges.

The next step for the Defence is to file its Appeal Brief which will flesh out and specify each of these grounds of appeal.

A date for a hearing has not been set.

See attachment with the full Notice of Appeal

[1] The 4 facts are: the existence and date of the two appeals Chamber decisions, their confidential character, the identity of the Applicant state for protective measures, the fact that the protective measures were granted in relation to war time documents.

NOTICE OF APPEAL OF FLORENCE HARTMANN. (WORD)

MOTION FOR STAY OF PAYEMENT OF FINE

Dominique Dupuy, Support Comittee of Florence Hartmann  


 PRESS RELEASE HARTMANN CONTEMPT OF COURT CASE AWAITING THE JUDGEMENT

FLORENCE HARTMANN ‘GUILTY’ FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT Sense News Agency	THE HAGUE, 14.09.2009.

The Special Chamber of the Tribunal in The Hague has found the French journalist ‘guilty’ of ‘conscious and deliberate obstruction of justice’ sentencing her to a €7,000 fine. All the defense’s arguments were rejected. The defense indicated at trial it intended to appeal before the ICTY Appeals Chamber and the European Court of Human Rights if their client were convicted Florence Hartmann, French journalist and former OTP spokesperson, was found guilty today of contempt of court, and was fined €7,000. The judgment was delivered by the ICTY’s Special Chamber with South African judge Moloto presiding and judges Liu from China and Guney from Turkey.  The Special Chamber concluded that Florence Hartmann ‘consciously and deliberately disclosed contents, purported effects and confidential nature of the two decisions of the Appeals Chamber in the Slobodan Milosevic case. Those decisions granted confidential status to documents issued by the FRY’s Supreme Council of Defense delivered to the Tribunal during the Milosevic trial. These documents allegedly contain evidence of Serbia’s involvement in the war in BH. As Hartmann wrote in the incriminating texts, protection measures were granted to those documents to protect Serbia from its responsibility before the International Court of Justice. At that time, the BH versus Serbia case went on before the ICJ. Although it accepts that some of the information published by Hartmann was already available to the public, the Special Chamber rejected as ‘unfounded’ the argument of the French journalist’s defense that the Appeals Chamber decisions ‘lost its confidential status’ when they were mentioned in public documents issued by the Tribunal. The argument that Serbia ‘renounced protective measures’ when its officials openly talked about confidential documents of the Supreme Defense Council was also rejected. Confidential decisions of ICTY Chambers, the judgment concluded, remain confidential until a chamber decides otherwise. Although Serbia in no way protested against the disclosure of the information and despite the progress in its cooperation with the Tribunal, the judgment highlights the fact that if other people were to do the same things the French journalist is charged with that ‘may dissuade sovereign countries from delivering documents’ requested by the Tribunal. The Special Chamber also stressed it was necessary to ‘deter the accused and others from disclosing of confidential information in the future’. It seems that this judgment will not be a final point in the Florence Hartmann case. Hartmann’s defense counsel indicated during the trial their intention to file an appeal not only before the ICTY Appeals Chamber but also before European Court of Human Rights if their client were convicted. In their opinion, the trial against the French journalist is an attempt to prevent all criticism of the Tribunal’s decisions and to impose new restrictions on the freedom of speech.

IWPR

TU No 616, 18-Sep-09

Hartmann to Appeal Contempt Conviction

 Leading media freedom group says judgement undermines credibility of international criminal justice.
By Rory Gallivan in London

An ex-spokesperson for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, is to appeal after being convicted of contempt of court for disclosing confidential information.

Florence Hartmann, who served as the spokesperson to former tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte from 2000 to 2006, was fined 7,000 euro for revealing, in knowing violation of a court order, the details of two appeals chamber decisions made in the case against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. The prosecution had called for a fine of between 7,000 and 15,000 euro.

"We will appeal this matter and are in the throes of doing so," Hartmann's lawyer Karim Khan told IWPR the day after the judgement was passed. The defence team has 15 days from the date of the decision to file an appeal.

The information Hartmann revealed related to orders by Hague judges to suppress parts of certain Serbian military documents that Belgrade had provided for use in the case against Milosevic. The former president's case ended without a verdict when the accused died of a heart attack in 2006.

The documents are thought to include minutes of meetings of Serbia's Supreme Defence Council, SDC, held during the Balkans wars of the Nineties. These minutes are widely believed to contain crucial information about Belgrade's involvement in these wars, and victims' groups, lawyers and the media have all criticised the decision not to make them public.

Hartmann, a former journalist who covered the war in Bosnia for French newspaper Le Monde, discussed confidential aspects of the court's handling of these documents in a book entitled Peace and Punishment (Paix et Chatiment), published in September 2007, and in an article published on the Bosnian Institute website on January 21, 2008.

In the article, which remains on the Bosnian Institute website, Hartmann argued that the suppressed documents might have supported the Bosnian government's genocide case against Serbia at the International Court of Justice, ICJ, which concluded in February 2007.

While ICJ judges found Serbia guilty of failing to prevent the genocide committed against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995 and to punish the perpetrators, they ruled that Serbia was not directly responsible for this crime.

Hartmann said in her article that Serbia requested that protective measures be applied to the documents, invoking a Hague tribunal rule which allows for such material to be kept secret if its disclosure could "prejudice national security interests".

According to her report, tribunal judges agreed to Serbia's request to grant confidential status to parts of the documents, finding that the state's "vital national interest" in not damaging its position in Bosnia's case before the ICJ could be admitted as a "national security interest", thus allowing protective measures to be granted under the rule.

When reading out the summary of the judgement against Hartmann this week, presiding judge Bakone Moloto said her conduct could deter states from submitting evidence to the tribunal in future.

"This, in turn, necessarily impacts upon the tribunal's ability to exercise its jurisdiction to prosecute and punish serious violations of humanitarian law as prescribed by its mandate," he said.

During the trial, Hartmann's defence argued that the confidential information she included in her article and book was already widely known. It cited articles published in US newspapers The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, as well as on this website of the UK-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting, IWPR, which it said had displayed information about the ICTY decisions.

But judges said that while they considered the fact that some of the information revealed by Hartmann had already been in the public domain, they ruled that this did not negate Hartmann's actions. They also noted that not all of the information contained in her book and article had been publicly known at the times of publication.

Judges also dismissed the defence argument that in bringing charges against Hartmann without investigating others suspected of similar acts, prosecutors had unfairly singled her out.

"The chamber finds that evidence that other persons may have committed similar acts to those alleged in the indictment is irrelevant to the case at hand, as it does not prove or disprove any of the charges against the accused," the judgement said.

The judgement also noted that although the tribunal's registrar had written to Hartmann on October 17, 2007, after the publication of her book, instructing her to comply with tribunal staff regulations to respect the confidentiality of judicial documents, she still went on to publish her article.

Judges also said that during an interview with Hague tribunal prosecutors, Hartmann stated that the article was intended to be an "English version" of certain passages in the book, which was published in French. "It's nothing new," she said in the statement, according to the judgement.

The investigation into the contempt allegations against Hartmann began on January 23, 2008, two days after the article's publication.

During the trial, defence lawyer Khan argued in court that in revealing the information in question, Hartmann had been fulfilling her duty as a journalist "as the watchdog of society in democratic pluralistic societies, not only of the executive, but all parts, including the judiciary and the legislature".

The defence argued that Hartmann had revealed information about the appeals chamber decisions in the belief that judges had violated the tribunal's duty to assist victims in seeking compensation for war crimes.

It called upon Louis Joinet, a French judge specialising in human rights, and Serbian human rights activist Natasa Kandic, to appear as witnesses.

During its examination of Joinet, the defence referred to a letter he signed, published in Le Monde in December 2008, which criticised the proceedings against Hartmann.

Joinet told judges that he had added a paragraph to the letter which he read out in court.

"We believe... that international justice, which... we have always supported, could only be strengthened in its fight against impunity by encouraging a large reflection on its role and functioning. Its reliability depends on it," he said reading from the letter.

He said that the paragraph had been inspired by his years' of experience of reporting on issues of freedom of expression when he worked for the United Nations.

Kandic argued during her examination that many people in Serbia knew that the documents in question existed, and that their existence had been widely discussed there before Hartmann's revelations.

Referring to Hartmann's indictment for contempt, she said, "It seemed completely illogical... that one person should be singled out for discussing it."

The prosecution called two witness: Yorric Kermarrec, who works for Flammarion, the company that published Hartmann's book, and Robin Vincent, the registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Prosecution lawyer Bruce MacFarlane asked Kermarrec whether Flammarion had an agreement with Hartmann to pay her royalties on her book, and also to confirm how many copies had been sold. He replied that there was such an agreement and that 3,799 copies had been sold as of June 8, 2009.

When examining Vincent, MacFarlane asked about the importance of confidentiality of state information in matters of international justice.

Referring to his work at the Lebanon tribunal, as well as to his previous experience at the ICTY and with a war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone, Vincent said that states would be unlikely to hand over confidential material if they feared that this could be disclosed.

"If there is any lack of confidence in the tribunal, so far as the state is concerned that's in a position to provide evidence which is crucial to that particular tribunal, once its recognised that there has been or may well be dangers of breaches, then it's unlikely that the cooperation that tribunal seeks will actually be forthcoming," he said.

The decision to try Hartmann for contempt prompted widespread opposition, and the guilty verdict sparked further criticism.

Reporters Without Borders, RSF, which campaigns for press freedom, said in a statement published on its site on September 15, "This conviction undermines the credibility of international criminal justice.

"How can you trust a court that chooses to conceal documents that would help to render justice and then suppresses information about its own functioning?"

Former president of Slovenia Milan Kucan also voiced his disappointment at the verdict.

Kucan, who before the trial signed a petition in support of Hartmann, was quoted in the Slovenian newspaper Dnevnik and other local media as saying, "Without understanding the circumstances under which the court operates, it would be very difficult to strengthen confidence in its work."

Kucan led Slovenia to independence in opposition to Milosevic in 1991, a process that culminated in a ten-day war between Slovenia and the Yugoslav army. He was Slovenia's head of state from 1991 to 2002.

Marko Attila Hoare, a historian specialising in the former Yugoslavia, who has worked as a research officer for the ICTY, was also critical of the judgement.

"The judges' refusal, in their verdict against Hartmann, to acknowledge the public interest in their disclosures epitomises the tribunal's increasing divorce of the principle of justice from their actual work," he told IWPR.

He argued that it was particularly wrong to try such a case, when many of those suspected of war crimes in the Balkans still walked free.

"The very act of prosecuting Hartmann while allowing so many of the key Serbian perpetrators to remain unindicted demonstrates the tribunal's skewed priorities," he said.

Rory Gallivan is an IWPR contributor in London.