Last update - 00:00 06/02/2007
Press Council: Ramon trial coverage violated ethics code
By Asaf Carmel, Haaretz Correspondent
The presidium of the Israel Press Council, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner, ruled Monday that the media coverage of the trial of former justice minister Haim Ramon violated the IPC's ethics guidelines. The decision followed criticism by the judges in the case of the performance of the media during the trial.
"Anyone who publishes an article whose aim is to affect the course of a trial shall be subject to a one-year prison sentence," Dorner said during a special session of the presidium Monday. "Today that clause is not enforced, but eventually it will be. I am warning you.... I don't want to see the justice system interfering with freedom of the press, and therefore it is very important to observe the ethical standards..."
The judges in the case, Hayuta Kochan, Daniella Shirazi and Daniel Be'eri, were very critical of the publication in Haaretz of the transcript of the video-conference confrontation the police staged between Ramon and the complainant. They also called the use by tabloids Maariv and Yedioth Ahronoth of polygraph tests to determine the credibility of three character witnesses for Ramon "corrupt."
Maariv News Department head Uri Rosen, who attended Monday's meeting, said his paper learned that these witnesses, all of whom worked in the Prime Minister's Office, had conspired to commit perjury. He defended Maariv's use of the lie detector test, which showed that one of the witnesses was lying, as an act of good citizenship. "A good citizen," said attorney Amihud Ben-Porat, the IPC's legal adviser, "is supposed to leave the judging to the court."
Most presidium members agreed with Dorner that the judges' assault on the media was a warning signal that must not be ignored.
"Before the police start doing criminal investigations and before the legislature sets dangerous norms, the disciplinary tools available to us must be strengthened and the rules of ethics must be enforced," attorney Yael Grossman said. "The council must deal with every violation of the guidelines, not only those involving a complaint."
Only two presidium members - Orit Shochat of Haaretz and the chair of the Association of Israeli Journalists in Tel Aviv, Yossi Bar-Moha - denounced the judges' criticism of the media. "The court did not express an opinion in many previous, similar cases," Bar-Moha said, "and made an exception this time only because the media criticized the legal system harshly."