The resolution was issued following a request for protection filed by the company that owns El Faro for a series of requirements unrelated to the tax interest requested by the Ministry of Finance.
The Ministry of Finance must temporarily refrain from requesting key documentation from Trípode, Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable (Trípode, SA de CV), the owner of the digital newspaper El Faro, while an amparo process is finally resolved at the request of the signature and determines if it further compromises freedom of expression and the press and the rights of journalists, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice has ordered.
In a resolution issued on Friday, the highest court ruled that “the requirement of the minutes of the company’s board of directors, the reports or final reports that are delivered to international cooperators and the details of subscribers who make regular contributions
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The Chamber’s decision responds to an amparo lawsuit filed by El Faro against the General Directorate, the Sub-Directorate General and the Department of Criminal Investigations and Fiscal Regulations, authorities of the General Directorate Internal Taxes (DGII) of the Ministry of Finance, which initiated proceedings in which they investigated the behavior tax of their company represented in relation to the fiscal years 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
According to Tripod’s lawyers, there is a risk that the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of information and informational self-determination of journalists who exercise – or have exercised in relevant periods – their work in the media will be violated. , persons contributing to it and the applicant company.
“Disclosing the information in question would allow the Executive Branch to know aspects of the editorial and environmental research line, as well as journalistic secrets related to the methodology, sources and collaborators of the El Faro environment,” say the lawyers’ allegations.
In addition, it is argued that the private information of the aforementioned environmental subscribers has no tax relevance and should be protected as it is sensitive personal data.
The Chamber states that this resolution “does not constitute – in any way – an obstacle to the inspection power of the tax administration”, as the purpose of this process is not to control the inspection procedures themselves nor to define – simply – Whether the documentation and information in question are of tax relevance, but rather to determine whether – as a consequence of the possible delivery of what is needed – the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, freedom of information and self-determination would be jeopardized.
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In early February, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued the IACHR issued legal protection measures in favor of the digital newspaper El Faro and its journalists against threats, harassment, intimidation, and criminalization and stigmatization by the Nayib Bukele government.
The IACHR, one of the main organs of the Organization of American States (OAS) for the promotion and defense of human rights, has ordered the state of El Salvador to take preventive measures, given the “gravity, urgency and irreparability” of events, threats, discrimination, discrediting through the media state and other hostilities.
In view of this, it calls on the Nayib Bukele government to take the necessary measures to preserve the lives and integrity of 34 people belonging to El Faro, as well as to “be able to carry out their journalistic activities in the exercise of their right to liberty. of expression, without being subjected to acts of intimidation, threats and harassment ”.