Hague Tribunal Charges Former Spokeswoman With Contempt

French journalist Florence Hartmann says she will contest charges at September hearing.

By Simon Jennings in The Hague (TU No 566, 29-Aug-08)

Florence Hartmann, a former spokeswoman for the Hague tribunal’s chief prosecutor, was charged with contempt of court this week for revealing confidential information after leaving her post.

Hartmann is charged on two counts relating to the disclosure of decisions made by the appeals chamber during the trial of the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, in 2005 and 2006, the court order said.

However, Hartmann told IWPR she was acting in the public interest.

“For me and my lawyers, it’s a question of free speech and the right to inform, with transparency, the public on a subject of public interest,” she said.

“We cannot say international justice is not a subject of public interest; it’s a subject even of humanity interest.”

The court order notes that Hartmann published a book, “Paix and Chatiment” (“Peace and Punishment”), in September 2007, and wrote an article entitled “Vital Genocide Documents Concealed”, which was published on the Bosnian Institute website on January 21 this year.

The order – which was issued in lieu of an indictment on 27 August – states that both these texts gave details of confidential decisions made by appeals judges on court motions which were themselves filed confidentially.

According to the court order, Hartmann broke the rules because she knew she was “revealing confidential information to the public”.

Hartmann, who was Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte's spokeswoman from 1999 to 2006, insists she has done nothing wrong.

She argues that public discussion of judicial affairs is a driving force behind the success of international justice.

“Public opinion is one of the leading forces in support of international justice because it is for the protection of any citizen in the world – that’s the ideal goal of international justice and of the rules that have been established,” she said.

“It’s right that there is a right of public scrutiny in those institutions.”

The journalist has been ordered to appear before the trial chamber on September 15.

The information she revealed is thought to relate to the court’s handling of certain documents, including minutes of meetings of the Serbian Defence Council, SDC, during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

The minutes from these meetings are widely believed to contain crucial information about Belgrade’s involvement in these wars, and both lawyers and the media have criticised the decision not to make them public.

Tribunal judges reportedly granted parts of the documents confidential status at Serbia’s request, under tribunal rules of procedure and evidence which allow a state to keep its documents secret if their disclosure could “prejudice national security interests”.

Lead prosecutor in the Milosevic case Sir Geoffrey Nice said no reason was given for this ruling at the time, which denied his team the fundamental information they needed to argue against it.

IWPR has covered this issue extensively and also written to the tribunal asking permission to employ an amicus curiae to argue the case for unsealing the documents. No response has yet been received.

Hartmann told IWPR she was “shocked” by the charges, and also by the manner in which she learned of them.

She found out, she said, when reading a circular news release sent out by the tribunal’s press office to the media before she had been officially notified by the registry.

“The registry sent me a copy yesterday night [August 27], three hours after the press was informed, and my lawyer who was representing me at the point I was a suspect had not been informed yet,” Hartmann said.

Tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic told IWPR that while she could not comment on specific cases, “the tribunal does generally endeavour to inform the accused of the charges against them”.

Hartmann, meanwhile, made it clear that she intends to fight the charges.

“I will respond to the charges and I don’t see any illegal motivation behind this move [to publish the material]. The tribunal… has taken some action against free speech and transparency,” she said.

Her lawyer William Bourdon rejected the charges, arguing that Hartmann had not revealed any confidential information, but only material that had come to light through her interviews as a journalist.

"As a journalist [Hartmann] had access to public information and to various sources in various countries through many interviews," Bourdon told IWPR.

He added that Hartmann “denies absolutely” revealing any confidential information.

Hartmann said she was also surprised at the timing of the charges, which come almost a full year after her book was published and after it had been translated into other languages.

“There were quite a lot of media reports that the book would be translated into Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian,” said Hartmann.

“If they [the tribunal] were concerned with anything they could have taken whatever decision they wanted prior to the book being [distributed] in other languages.”

Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.