Habeas Data: Alto Paraná Appeals Court Upholds Outrageous Ruling Against Press Freedom

Paraguay’s Alto Paraná Labor Appeals Court has unanimously upheld a judgment ordering the deletion of journalistic publications about businessman Estanislao Pereira de Oliveira, known as Chilao. The decision followed his habeas data petition, which argued that the reports damaged his honor, reputation and name because they remained online indefinitely.

The original ruling, SD No. 104, came from Nélida Alvarenga, a Labor Court judge in Ciudad del Este. The appeals decision, AyS No. 92, was signed by Alba C. Centurión García De Zúñiga, Humberto Damián Espínola Groselle and Juana Bertha Ávalos Agüero.

Editorial Azeta SA, publisher of ABC Color and ABC Digital, appealed through lawyers César Coll, Yrma Núñez and Porfirio Garcete. The company sought to have the ruling annulled, arguing that it violated the right to information and freedom of expression.

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A deeply troubling decision for press freedom.

The publisher pointed to what it described as a contradiction in Alvarenga’s judgment. The judge wrote that the available case records did not allow the court to categorically declare all the disputed reports false or inaccurate, since several were connected to concrete events, open investigations or existing court proceedings.

Núñez called the appeals ruling “a deeply troubling decision for press freedom.” She said the habeas data procedure had been used to order the removal of reports that the ruling itself recognized as legitimate and in the public interest.

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Under the appearance of protecting personal rights, habeas data was used to order the removal of journalistic publications that the ruling itself recognizes as legitimate and in the public interest.