A ruling by Spain's Constitutional Court may set a new legal precedent. The court has decided that the right to freedom of expression "does not empower a person to call a bullfighter a murderer" on social media. In the particular case the court was considering, furthermore, the description was published "within hours of the death" of the bullfighter involved. Thus, it ratifies the sentence pronounced for a municipal councillor in the Valencian town of Catarroja, Datxu Peris, for a Facebook post she published following the death of the bullfighter Víctor Barrio in 2017. For her words, Peris had to pay a fine of 7,000 euros on the basis of "illegitimate interference" in a deceased person's right to honour. The councillor appealed the fine, and now the Constitutional Court has overturned her appeal.
Specifically, the local politician wrote about Barrio on social media: "We can try to see the positive side of news stories in order not to suffer so much... He has stopped killing. The negative side, among other things, clearly, is that throughout his career he killed too much. Too many of those who are on my side, who, as I always say, are the oppressed, the ones who always lose because they have all the oppressors against them, because the match has been fixed. Now, the oppressors have had a casualty, one more victim, one pawn in their system, and I wonder, like many, how many more casualties..."
Facebook capture of part of the Valencian councillor's post
What does the court argue?
The court's ruling, presented by Santiago Martínez-Vares as reporting judge, underlines that, given the circumstances of the case, "the expressions used by the appellant are evidenced as unnecessary, disproportionate, as well as lacking foundation in the exercise of the right to freedom of expression". And it adds: "To publicly defend her anti-bullfighting position, it was not necessary to describe Victor Barrio as a murderer or oppressor on social media and to show relief about his death. Even less so to do so by accompanying the text with a photograph in which the bullfighter was shown injured, with obvious signs of pain, and to make this publication within hours of the death as a result of this goring in the Teruel bullring, in this way causing further pain in addition to what his family members were already suffering".
As well, the court points out two aspects which were at the root of its decision that this post on Facebook was inadmissible: "murderer" and "member of the group of oppressors" as it considers these to constitute interference with the right to honour, with his personal reputation and a "denigration of his prestige and professional activity." And beyond the specific case, the Constitutional Court ends up launching a firm defence of bullfighting: "The profession in which Mr Barrio was engaged is, for now, lawful and, therefore, it is not possible to address insulting expressions to those who exercise in it just for doing so, the expression 'murderer' being clearly degrading to address to a bullfighter, for the mere fact of being one, even if one does not take part in this activity".
One of the first to celebrate the Constitutional Court's decision was the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso: "All my support to the family of Víctor Barrio." As for councillor Datxu Peris, she has not yet spoken.
Tweet by Isabel Díaz Ayuso applauding the TC's decision
Main photo: Image of the bullfighter Octavio Chacón in Logroño.