6 might hope to get through the criminal court, without the risks and disadvantages that the latter poses. In fact, a conviction in civil court is in itself a statement that the conduct in question was unlawful, a statement no less emphatic and effective than a conviction in criminal court. Although the forum may be different in name, it can arrive at the same finding that a criminal law court would: i.e., that the respondent’s behavior constituted wrongful conduct detrimental to the plaintiff, who has the law and reason on his side. Thus, the civil verdict itself becomes a form of reparation that serves to redeem the honor and good name of the person seeking the court’s protection. In a number of its judgments, including the judgment in the Case of Herrera Ulloa vs. Costa Rica, the Inter-American Court underscored the importance of the judgment itself as a means of reparation or moral satisfaction. Furthermore, a civil judgment can order payment of moral damages and, where appropriate, pecuniary damages to redress the harm caused to the person who was defamed. So a civil judgment provides two types of reparation that are of greater interest to an aggrieved party and social satisfaction in the form of the court’s censure of the unlawful conduct. 19. And so, this solution should be –and in fact has been- given serious consideration, de lege ferenda, as a substitute for the options under criminal law when a journalist is on trial for offenses against honor in the practice of his profession. Naturally, bases of justification, under civil and criminal law, resulting from the exercise of a right or the performance of a duty in accordance with the standards of journalism would remain intact. When such justification is present, there can be no liability. Obviously, the civil solution does not pose the same problems that the criminal law solution poses vis-à-vis domestic and international human rights standards, nor does the civil law solution have the intimidating effect that the criminal law solution has. As the Court has pointed out, the criminal law solution can ultimately inhibit the exercise of freedom of expression. 20. In seeking alternative solutions, which should ideally yield “the” reasonable solution to this matter, it is worth recalling that in some cases, provision has been made to punish, as criminal offenses, the repeated commission of illicit acts initially punishable under civil or administrative law. In such cases, the repetition of the offense implies aggravation of the wrongdoing, to the point that it moves from the realm of civil or administrative law into the realm of criminal law and is punishable with measures provided for under criminal law. There may have been other less drastic options to find a solution, which many of us would consider preferable: to resolve in the civil courts the excesses committed through the mass media, by professionals in the information business. This proposal does not necessarily mean either the exclusion or the inclusion of all possible offenses against honor. Several legal systems have opted to remove this from the realm of criminal law, to allow it to be solved by civil and administrative means. 21. When the Court heard this case, it learned about a bill in Costa Rica on the subject of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, which would introduce changes into the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure and in the Press Act. This bill points up the existence of a school of thought that believes that certain provisions closely related to the subject of freedom of expression need to be amended. Under the bill, which the Court is not called upon to address in the case sub judice, certain grounds for preclusion of the crime related to behaviors of the kind that the present case involves would be added to Article 151 of the Penal Code. These include situations such as “publication or reproduction of information or value judgments on matters of public interest that offend honor or public reputation, that