Baraona’s place of residence. Thus, the Court concludes that the State did disseminate the
Commission’s Merits Report No. 52/19 to the Judiciary and to various media outlets, and
therefore considers that it has complied with this request.
169. Regarding the publication of this judgment, as it has done in other cases,188 the Court
orders the State to publish, within six months from notification of this judgment, in a legible
and appropriate font size, the following: a) the official summary of this judgment prepared by
the Court, once, in the Official Gazette; b) the official summary of this judgment prepared by
the Court, once, in a newspaper with wide national circulation, and c) this judgment in its
entirety, available for one year on an official website of the Judiciary, in a manner accessible
to the public from the home page of the website. The State shall immediately inform the Court
once it has made each of the publications ordered, regardless of the one-year term to submit
its first report as provided for in the thirteenth operative paragraph of this judgment.
D. Guarantees of non-repetition
D.1 Adoption of legislation
170. The Commission requested the State be ordered to adapt its domestic criminal
legislation in accordance with the State’s obligations under the American Convention on
freedom of expression, by decriminalizing the crimes of defamation, libel and slander in those
cases where the offended person is a public official, a public figure or a private individual who
has been involved in matters of public interest. In relation to the third recommendation on
the adaptation of domestic legislation, the Commission noted that “there is no dispute over
the fact that the draft Criminal Code which, according to the State, would enable compliance
with the recommendation to adapt its criminal law, has not yet been discussed in the National
Congress.”
171. The representatives requested that domestic criminal legislation on freedom of
expression be amended, requiring the State to repeal the crimes of defamation, libel and
slander, in cases in which the right to freedom of expression is exercised to make political
criticism against individuals, public officials or public authorities, so that the State is ordered
to comply effectively with the obligations arising from the American Convention on freedom
of expression. They pointed out that there has been no change in domestic criminal law. The
State’s attempt to issue a new Criminal Code that includes the “doctrine of legitimate
criticism,” complementing the second paragraph of Article 29 of Law No. 19.733, has failed
to materialize as a valid regulation, because the draft Criminal Code that the government
presented in 2018 has not made any progress since the time of its presentation, thus failing
to comply with the third recommendation made by the Commission.
172. The State argued that not every criminal definition of slanderous conduct constitutes
per se a violation of the Convention. In the Chilean legal system, the entire spectrum of crimes
against honor (libel and slander) constitute crimes of private criminal action. Therefore, the
procedural initiative is the responsibility of the respective plaintiff, without any intervention
by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Moreover, the procedural practice of the Chilean courts has
determined that the criminalization of such conduct is the ultima ratio, and therefore it must
be applied in the strictest sense possible. With respect to the Commission’s third
recommendation, it specified that the current draft of the 2018 Criminal Code crystalizes the
concept of the “doctrine of legitimate criticism,” regulated in domestic law in the second
paragraph of Article 29 of Law No. 19.733. In the draft bill that will soon be submitted to the
188
Cf. Case of Cantoral Benavides v. Peru. Reparations and costs. Judgment of December 3, 2001. Series C
No. 88, para. 79, and Case of Leguizamón Zaván v. Paraguay, supra, para. 107.
49