So far as I can judge, this is the key bit of the ruling:
And, under such terms, although the introductory note in the book invokes personal reasons, in a situation of conflict with the rights to a good name and reputation of the subjects of the appeal, the appellant [Gonçalo Amaral] could not benefit, faced with the results of the investigation, of a broad and full freedom of expression – and thus his conduct would be unlawful, under article 484 of the Civil Code.
From what was above said about this matter, it is clearly understood that such argumentation cannot be sustained.
In effect, and independently of the reasons invoked by the appellant for the publication, it is hardly understandable that an employee, even more a retired one, would have to keep said duties of secrecy and reserve, thus being limited in the exercise of his right to an opinion, concerning the interpretation of facts that were already made public by the judiciary authority, and widely debated (in fact, largely by initiative of the intervenients themselves) in the national and international media.
This ruling is even worse than I thought.
Portuguese law places a clear obligation on
serving PJ officers to observe judicial secrecy.
Yet this ruling says that even
serving PJ officers should be exempt; Amaral, even more so, because he quit the PJ before he released onto the market his work of traducement and lies (to be clear, having breached judicial secrecy in getting it ready for publication so soon after the process was archived).
If any of the manifest breaches (of judicial secrecy)
during the course of the investigation can be shown directly attributable to Amaral, then I don't see how this ruling can possibly be sustained.
And for these judges to hold that even
serving police officers should not feel under any obligation to obey judicial secrecy surely demonstrates them incompetent, biased, or even
corrupt?
How much money is left in the
gofundme slush-fund, again?
