Fresh from… well, fresh from doing something, one presumes, the Italian parliament is ready to vote on a law hamstringing the press even further (the so-called <a href=”http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2010/05/19/news/senato_accelera-4186524/?ref=HRER1-1″>legge bavaglio</a>).

The main provisions of the law relate to the publication of leaks from public prosecutors’ office: in particular, a ban on any information before the initial hearing, a ban on publication of wiretap evidence, and a ban on concealed recording. It is, of course, entirely coincidental that this law should have risen to prominence after a network of corrupt exchanges was uncovered through… leaks from prosecutors’ offices.

Before I sat down to write this, I checked the UK legal situation to see if there were any laws similar in effect (if not in intent) to those proposed by the majority in the parliament. Okay, wiretap evidence is much less common in the UK than in Italy, so some of these concerns aren’t raised, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the one time the Crown Prosecution service tried to go after the journalist rather than the leak, they were <a href=”http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5251192.ece”>laughed out of court</a>.

This was largely (as far as I can tell without having the text of the judgement) on the grounds that journalists had a right under Article 10 of the EHCR to publish information given to them.

So this legislation too would probably go against the ECHR. Hell, it probably also goes against the Italian constitution. But then I think that both of those could also be said of Italian defamation legislation — and that remains an extremely handy tool for politicians.

[See this video if you want to know the reason behind the title]