Free speech and the Right of the public to receive information.

The Trial Chambers have accordingly exercised their authority to prohibit the press from publishing protected material by way of issuing protective orders. Individuals, including journalists, may not – with impunity – publish information in defiance of such orders on the basis of their own assessment of the public interest in accessing that information.

This is how the judges explain their conviction against Florence Hartmann: they cite several examples of former cases when international or regional Courts ruled against the right of the public to access information in the name of other fundamental rights. But when one reads this case law, one notices that none really applies to Florence Hartmann’s case, since she never unveiled the content of the classified documents.

So may be are the true motives of this decision to be found a little further in the text: In the determination of the appropriate penalty, the Chamber has also considered the need to deter future wrongful disclosure of confidential information by the Accused or any other person.

In other words, the Tribunal does not want anyone to be allowed to discuss its functioning in the future.

However, the jurisprudence in Europe and in other democratic societies outlines that the freedom of journalists to write work/book about issues of public and general interest could hardly be curtailed except in exceptional circumstances namely, in case where the disclosure of information would prejudice the national security of a country or endanger a return to the rule of law. There are no such exceptional circumstances in the present case

Moreover, it considered impermissible a conviction against a journalist for disclosing confidential documents when most of the information was already in the public domain, especially when journalists are contributing to an important public debate. It should have applied in the present case.