Thank you so much Anne. Your report is very important.
I wished I had been in Lisbon but I dared not postpone work appointments when I thought this trial would be dismissed.
If we look at what is at stake, which is suing for a defamation crime (violation of personality rights, that are protected by our Constitution), I fail to understand how this Court can consider what is the level of the respondents’ responsibility when they were cleared from committing a crime, not by one, but by two higher courts (relation and supreme court).
I remember that at some time or another Isabel Duarte invoked “honor” and “image”; well, we know how difficult it is to measure how those rights can be damaged – that’s why there is a rule that establishes that it must be proved that a crime has been committed against said rights. As we know by the previous criminal trial, it was dismissed that such a crime was committed.
Nevertheless, according to the Civil Law there are cases where civil responsibility can be invoked even when an illicit was not committed (accidents, for instance), but in those cases it must be established a nexus of causality between the “accident” and the objective damages suffered by the claimants.
So far I haven’t seen any reports published by the Media that point to health problems, financial losses, actions towards the search for Madeleine,… directly resulting from the object of the claim.
In Portugal there are several cases where people or enterprises were compensated by damages caused by accidents but never for facts that were dismissed by the courts as non-criminal.
Is the court reassembling again today?! If so are you going to offer us again a report of it? I hope so.
Thank you very much Anne.