Journalists that are Witnesses in Criminal and Contraventional Cases. ‘With the Justice we Have, it Might be Dangerous Sometimes to Accept to be a Witness’

Victoria Dodon from the Center for Investigative Journalism got herself involved as a witness in a contraventional case started by the Police after she published, during the presidential election campaign of 2016, the article ‘Igor Dodon and his connection with denigrating leaflets about Maia Sandu’ on Anticoruptie.md. The journalist reported on the connection between the Union of Officers and President Igor Dodon, in the context of spreading leaflets that were denigrating Maia Sandu.
‘Police asked me all kinds of questions about how I documented the case, how did I find out that the leaflets were distributed exactly there, at the Union of Officers. There were several questions that I, for the most part, refused to answer because the Police officers wanted me to disclose my sources’, said Victoria Dodon.
The journalist remembers that the law enforcement officers were persuading her to bring her laptop to the Police in order to get the original photos and audio records. ‘I have categorically refused to do so, because the photographs are carrying information: you can find out when they were made, on what device. I refused to show them this information. The lawyer of the Center for Investigative Journalism has invoked legal provisions that gave me this right’, stated Victoria Dodon.
Subsequently, this contraventional case was closed on the grounds that ‘there have not been found constitutive elements of an offence or contravention provided for by Article 70 (Defamation) of the Contraventional Code‘. At the same time, according to the resolution, the executive secretary of the Union of Officers, Alexandru Maliuga, was sanctioned with a fine of MDL 400 for spreading electioneering materials that do not contain necessary information.

‘All we have to say, we do say in the materials that we publish’

Another investigative journalist, Mariana Rata, head of the News Department of TV 8, was summoned as a witness in several cases. Several years ago she was summoned in the case of the former director of the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) Valeriu Pasat, who was suspected of selling several MIG-type aircrafts. To be precise, she was summoned to the Prosecutor's Office to tell the law enforcement officers the things that Valeriu Pasat told her during an interview.
A few years later, the journalist was again summoned to the Prosecutor's Office. This time, it was in the case of the blogger Eduard Baghirov, suspected of involvement in the events that happened in April 2009 in Chisinau. Mariana Rata refused then to be a witness and told the prosecutors only on what websites and networks she found the information she published. ‘Generally speaking, journalists do not conceal important details and are open to collaboration with law enforcement bodies. However, it is totally groundless for the prosecutors to demand the disclosure of the sources. The journalists will disclose the sources if they want to, but if they want to keep the sources’ anonymity then no one can oblige them to disclose the information’, Mariana Rata said.

The journalist believes that when a reporter is eye witness to some events, it is relevant for him/her to testify as a citizen, but it is inappropriate to be summoned as a witness when he/she writes about certain events. ‘This is a waste of time for the journalist. He must show up at hearings, come to the court. We do not have time for that. All we have to say, we do say in the materials that we publish. They should be kind enough to get informed from the materials’, the journalist pointed out.

‘The Prosecutor's Office requested the originals of some documents’

Ion Preasca, MoldStreet portal editor-in-chief and investigative journalist at RISE Moldova, recalls that he was summoned to the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office during 2011-2012, when the so-called raider attacks were rendered towards some banks in the Republic Moldova. The publication he was working at that time, ‘Adevarul’ Moldova, published some information about those cases. ‘We published the information and the Prosecutor's Office required that we file testimonies. A criminal trial was initiated. They wanted us to offer the originals of some documents. I was questioned and handed the papers to the Prosecutor's Office. A year after that I periodically called out to find out what was happening with the file. So I do not know what the investigation ended with’, recalls Ion Preasca.

‘Let’s be careful when receiving requests from the law enforcement bodies’

Olga Ceaglei, now a journalist at RISE Moldova, accepted just once to testify in a human trafficking case, following the publication of an investigation about a man with serious health problems forced to beg in Moscow. After publishing the article ‘Begging in Moscow under a former security officer oversight. A victim, Moldovan citizen, can not escape from the traffickers' clutches‘ on the portal Investigatii.md (Investigations.md), the anti-trafficking police have initiated an investigation on this case and asked Olga Ceaglei to testify as to facilitate the process of creating the rogatory commission and to repatriate the trafficked victim. ‘The person was repatriated and the case went to court. Because I had testified for the anti-trafficking police, I was summoned to testify also in court’, said Olga Ceaglei.
She considers that journalists should be very careful before accepting to testify in criminal trials because they bear responsibility for the sources.
‘It might be dangerous in some cases to accept being a witness, given the justice system we have. Sometimes, the purpose of those involved in the process is to identify the sources. That is why we, journalists, should be careful when requested by the law enforcement bodies to testify’, mentioned Olga Ceaglei.
She argues that journalists’ work consists in documenting topics of public interest in order to publish later investigations which reveal certain illegalities. ‘The journalistic activity should stop at this point, while the law enforcement bodies should initiate their own investigation’, says the journalist.

‘Media Lawyer’ about the journalist's witness status

Recently, the topic was addressed within the ‘Media Lawyer’ heading on Media Azi. The Independent Journalism Center lawyer, Zinaida Gheata, specified who may not be heard as a witness and under what circumstances. Journalists may not be heard under certain circumstances. For instance, the Criminal Procedure Code states, among other statements, that the journalist can not be summoned and heard as a witness to disclose the name of the person who offered the information. At the same time, the journalist can be summoned and heard as a witness only if the information is absolutely necessary to prevent or discover particularly serious or exceptionally serious crimes.