JOURNALISTS TO BE EXEMPT FROM PROSECUTION FOR SLANDER?

ZAGREB, July 16 (Hina) - The Croatian government is preparing amendments to the Penal Code based on which journalists would be exempted from prosecution for slander, an unofficial source at the government said on Wednesday. #L# The possibility has been considered by the inner cabinet, the source said. The plan is to change Article 203, under which a journalist must answer before a court for putting out public statements and information if they are proven to be untrue. This, under changes to the Penal Code recently adopted by parliament, carries a jail term ranging from six to 12 months. According to the unofficial source, the government is also planning to include in a new media law a solution under which liability for putting out untrue and slanderous information would be put on the publisher. Justice Minister Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic told Hina today the government would consider journalists' objections, but she said they were a belated reaction because not one amendment had been moved to the provision in question when the bill was debated in parliament. Besides journalists, authors, scientists, state officials, politicians, and public workers are now also liable for slander charges, said the minister, adding that none of them had protested against the fact that slander could no longer go unpunished. Another change of the Penal Code would give only journalists the right to deliberately put out lies, said the minister. She said that before a final decision on the matter was made, journalists as well as citizens should voice their opinion. In moving the Penal Code amendments, the justice ministry did not intend to restrict journalists' freedoms, as evidenced by the novelty that editors-in-chief will now be held to account only when they are personally guilty of a crime committed through the media, the minister said. (hina) ha sb