Consult, Labor: “I would prefer prison than pay a fine to a delinquent”

“It is a false problem, it would be a fake prison, and I would rather have a week in jail than pay a hefty fine to a criminal whom I may have criticized too much.” Marco Travaglio talks to Adnkronos about the decision that the Constitutional Court will have to take today on the legitimacy of the prison sentence for defamation in the press, explaining that “if the fine is taken by a newspaper it is possible that the newspaper will fail, reporter may no longer work or even have to pay a year’s salary. At this point, I prefer detention … “. “The real theme – continues the editor of Fatto Quotidiano – is to confuse opinion with deliberately saying falsehood: but I have to be able to criticize whoever I want and my right is more valid if the critic is at the top. Besides, how does a judge allow himself to determine if my criticism is excessive? The only thing the magistrate has to intervene on is falsehoods. Instead, we put opinions and defamations in the same cauldron ”. “As for the crime of defamation – says Travaglio – there should be willful misconduct and reiteration for it to be such. An error, an oversight, can happen and is resolved with rectification. We must distinguish the two things and there must also be gradualness in the punishment: one fact is if you say something wrong and then correct it. Another is if you lie repeatedly, maliciously, if you make a smear campaign against an honest man: then yes, you must go to jail ”.