The Court of Rome has overturned the €150,000 fine imposed on RAI by the Italian Data Protection Authority for broadcasting audio recordings of former minister Gennaro Sangiuliano and his wife Federica Corsini on Report . Sigfrido Ranucci announced the news on Facebook . "According to the Court of Rome," he explained, " it was legitimate and in the public interest to broadcast the audio recording. Furthermore, the magistrates emphasize that the Authority conducted its investigations outside the timeframe established by law. The Authority erred in both content and form." The content of the contested report, the ruling states, "can be traced back to the legitimate exercise of journalistic reporting and criticism, in the specific form of investigative journalism, in compliance with the principle of essential information."

The court "recognizes the public interest in disseminating the news, since the matter, although permeated by personal aspects, assumes substantial public relevance. The telephone conversations between the former minister and his wife concern the undoubtedly interesting issue of the possibility that the assignment of high institutional positions , rather than being inspired by the best care for the public interest, could be influenced by issues of a purely personal nature." "In fact, without prejudice to the understandable emotional turmoil suffered by those involved," it continues, "it must be affirmed that the full and original disclosure of the conversation is fully justified from the perspective of conveying the historical fact in its immediacy, thus avoiding the risk of arousing in the viewer the suspicion of artificial or biased reconstructions on the part of the journalist . Moreover, this is consistent with the very nature of investigative journalism, 'committed' to the disclosure of facts as faithful as possible to historical reality."

The "lateness of the sanctioning measure" is also in the spotlight . "The certainty of the time within which the administrative authority must conclude the proceedings," the ruling explains, "allows interested parties to effectively exercise their right to defense, averting, on the one hand, the risk associated with possible inertia on the part of the requested authority and, on the other, the risk of unlimited exposure to the potential infliction of a disadvantage." For this reason, "the peremptory nature of the time limits within which the proceeding authority must conclude the various phases of the proceedings, up to the final decision, represents an essential prerequisite for ensuring compliance with fundamental principles of the legal system, protected by constitutional guarantees." This position, it is emphasized, was recently reaffirmed by the Court of Cassation. It should be remembered that the Guarantor itself has set its own timeframes for action, establishing—in the Privacy Code—that decisions on complaints must be made within 9–12 months "from receipt of the complaint." The longer 12-month deadline is granted by law only in the presence of justified investigative needs, previously communicated to the interested party as established by Article 8 of the same regulation (which, in this case, did not occur).

(Unioneonline)

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