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Libel
and right to information On the defence's opinion, indeed, the two physicians
simply manifested their free conviction as regard to a very important
event, and by them, attentively followed by public opinion.
Within
this frame, the bitter critic moved by the two columnists against the
Medical Association behaviour and choices, turned into a clear recall
to the safeguard, even professional, of the image of family doctors
involved in investigations, and they strictly aimed to prevent the unconditioned
and irrational discredit of the whole medical class, and as such, merely
lying over the practice of a lawful right to information.
The
earlier jurisprudential production, on the other side, defines such
right as the expression of a judgment or opinions that, as such, cannot
be rigorously impartial. Summing up, in evaluating the assertion of
the right to critics, the requirement of formal temperance is to be
deemed as lessened by the need to express one's own opinions and one's
own interpretation of facts. Facts and sanctions: the proportionality
and appropriateness criteria Ending the petition, the defence demurred
further at manifest disproportion between the inflicted sanction and
the magnitude of the charged fact.
The judging organ indeed did not take into account at all the even relevant
circumstance of the rectification sent by the two columnists to the
MD review, by which the guilt specified that the offending sentence
was the result of a mere misprint and a wrong transposition of the text
from proof to press.
The
central committee's decision The Health Professions Dealers Central
Committee, called to rule the petition at matter, reversed the appealed
sentence by replacing the disciplinary measure of cessation with the
remarkably less afflicting censure measure. The organ did not recognized
the subsistence of a conflict of interest, as the defence supported,
but it fully shared the reason according to which there were a disproportion
between the inflicted sanction and the notified charge, since, as it
can be read in the motive "the article (...) was hosted in a low circulation
magazine and in fact devoted to only physicians.
Further
the remarkable magnitude of the judicial-disciplinary event could justify
and legitimate a right to information owing to the petitioner (...)"
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