BRATISLAVA, November 8, (WEBNOVINY) — The criminal complaint filed by Judge Helena Kozikova because her face appeared in the film documentary Disease of the Third Power by Zuzana Piussi is an attack on freedom to control power, says the Association of Independent Producers (ANP). „The judge, at the time the movie was shot a Vice President of the Judicial Council as a public official must accept public interest in her integrity. With her movie, its director is putting up an authentic mirror precisely to the integrity of the judiciary in Slovakia,“ ANP says in its statement provided to SITA news agency by its president Mario Homolka . „What the film director did was justified, necessary, and proper in the public interest,“ the statement says.
ANP argues that Judge Kozikova referred to her terminally ill colleague as purposively sick (stimulating illness) and the Judicial Council, of which Ms. Kozikova was Vice President, punished the judge also financially. This was shortly before her death … „The suspicion that this was a revenge for her reluctance to judge in line with received ‚advice‘, i.e., partiality, not freely, unfairly … is highly justified and examining it is in the interest of society. If the vice president of the Judicial Council is unwilling to explain the reasons for her actions publicly through the media, which are seeking answers, the author has the right to seek those answers also in the way the director Zuzana Piussi used,“ said ANP. According to ANP, the fact that the police had not rejected the motion filed by Judge Kozikova after its examination but started criminal prosecution also speaks of the „health“ of the supervising prosecutor. „The effort to intimidate and silence those who put up a mirror to society is a totalitarian residue,“ writes Homolka.
In a democratic country, it is inadmissible to persecute and punish authors, artists, journalists, and ordinary citizens who have decided to critically comment the state of public affairs. „As producers, we always defend critical authors and create conditions for their work. If society does not stand up firm against this malicious action, it will slip from under democratic control, and it will all be over in Slovakia,“ ANP writes and adds that after more than twenty years of freedom, also due to „illness of the third power“ we are in danger of having to live in a caricature of freedom.
ANP points out that a critical documentary and investigative journalism are part of every cinematography in a healthy society. „The authors, who work on socially significant issues, have the possibility to use a hidden camera and are not required to seek consent to disclose a recorded person that is subject to the definition of a public person.“ According to ANP, this is especially true if the recording relates to the abuse of power and unethical conduct of the given person. These rules are enshrined in codes of conduct of journalist associations, among others, also in the Code of British public broadcaster BBC.
The documentary by Zuzana Piussi includes a discussion with a former member of the Judicial Council and the then Chairperson of the District Court Bratislava I Judge Helena Kozikova. It concerned the known and highly publicized case of deceased judge Marta Laukova. In the film footage Kozikova speaks with the daughter of the deceased judge, who asks her questions regarding remarks Judge Kozikova had with regard to Judge Laukova before her death. Following the broadcast of the film on television, Judge Kozikova sued RTVS for damage of her reputation and filed a criminal complaint, following which police opened a criminal investigation in the matter of breach of confidentiality of a verbal expression.
SITA