MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine highest court blasts CFK government for arbitrary distribution of state advertising

Mrs. Kirchner likes to reward complacent media and punish critics

A milestone ruling from the Argentina's Supreme Court calls for the omission of discriminatory criteria and “reasonable balance” in the allocation of state advertising. The ruling stems from a 2006 injunction filed by Editorial Perfil, the country's largest magazine publisher, claiming arbitrary distribution of official advertising.

In a unanimous decision Argentina's highest court said: “All media should receive official advertising: That is the difference between equal treatment and discriminatory treatment”. The court's unanimous decision upholds a 2009 ruling by a federal appeals court that withholding official advertising from several publications of Editorial Perfil violated freedom of the press as guaranteed in the Argentine constitution.

Perfil had filed a court injunction against the government of then President Nestor Kirchner in July 2006, alleging that it was discriminated against by the Argentine government for its critical reporting. The company said its publications were denied government advertising and their journalists were barred access to official sources and events.

The federal appeals court gave the Argentine government 15 days to place state ads in the company's weeklies Noticias and Fortuna, and its weekend paper Perfil. The government later appealed the decision before the Supreme Court.

The Centre for Judiciary Information said that “clearly state advertising is being used as an undercover subsidy to reward complacent media and to punish the critics”.

The decision builds on a 2007 Supreme Court ruling condemning the province of Neuquén for the withdrawal of state advertising from the national daily Río Negro. In the Río Negro case, the court stated that the government cannot curb the placement of official ads to the press arbitrarily.

“There’s no right to receive a certain amount of state advertisement, but if the state decides to award advertising there is a protection against the arbitrary distribution which excludes appealing by the State to discriminatory criteria”, said the Rio Negro ruling. It is mandatory for the State to justify the existence of sufficient motives in support of its decision when it suppresses or interrupts official advertisement’s distribution to any media.

Since the government has presented “no rational justification” for the exclusion of the Perfil Group media from advertisement distribution, not did it deny during the court case that the Perfil group receives a different treatment to other written media the Supreme Court upholds the appeal and confirms the lower court ruling.

The Committee to Protect Journalists hailed the ruling by Argentina's Supreme Court and called on the Argentine congress to promote legislation that limits government discretionary authority in state advertising.

“The Supreme Court ruling is a strong statement in support of press freedom in Argentina” said Carlos Lauría, CPJ’s senior program coordinator for the Americas. “We call on Congress to take the next step and promote legislation that would limit the government's discretionary authority in allocating state advertising.”

CPJ and other analysts have found that the administration of President Cristina Kirchner, CFK, continuing a system institutionalized during the presidency of her husband, Néstor Kirchner, has manipulated the distribution of official advertising to economically sanction critical media and reward those that support the government.

Press freedom advocates have argued that the misappropriation of government advertising violates Articles 14 and 32 of the Argentine constitution, which prohibits censorship and guaranties freedom of the press, respectively, and Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights.