59 102(7) With regard to Mr. Fernán Vargas Rohrmoser’s status as alleged victim inasmuch as he was directly affected by the enforcement of the court judgment, the alleged victims’ representatives argued that: a) the State violated the Convention when, in an April 3, 2001 order of the Criminal Court of the First Judicial Circuit of San José, it demanded that Mr. Fernán Vargas Rohrmoser comply with the order for enforcement of the judgment of conviction, expressly warning him that should he fail to comply, he might be deemed to have committed the crime of contempt of authority, provided for in Article 307 of the Costa Rican Penal Code and carrying a penalty of imprisonment. This demand is what made Mr. Vargas Rohrmoser an alleged victim; and b) his status as an alleged victim is not lifted by the State’s claim that if he failed to comply with the order for enforcement of the judgment ordering execution of judgment, Mr. Rohrmoser would not have served time in prison for the crime of contempt of authority. Pleadings of the State 103. With regard to Article 13 of the Convention, the State asserted that: a) the courts convicted Mr. Herrera Ulloa because the party filing the criminal complaint proved the defendant’s mens rea. Moreover, democratic society is undermined as much by receiving untruthful information as it is by receiving no information at all; b) the reputation of others is regarded per se as one of the few legitimate grounds for restricting freedom of expression and thought. Democratic society demands that the right to freedom of expression and the right to have one’s honor respected be protected as equals. All the Convention-protected rights must be the frame of reference for any quest for balance. The right to honor is not a purely individual right; c) criminalizing utterances, words or deeds that besmirch a person’s honor or dignity does not, per se, trample freedom of expression. Costa Rica does not punish a person merely because he criticizes a public official. A person is punished when a trial, in which all the guarantees of due process are respected, proves that the reputation of a public official has been willfully and maliciously harmed; d) moreover, “even when the guilty party has been convicted in criminal court and ordered to pay damages and the victim has been allowed to exercise his right of reply, in all likelihood that inkling of doubt as to the victim’s good name will linger in the minds of his contemporaries and those of future generations;” e) if the State fails to establish effective mechanisms to protect the honor of public officials, the public interest would be harmed and Costa Rica could hardly recruit the best people to serve in government;