Argentinian President Javier Milei filed lawsuits this month for defamation against three journalists, reports the Buenos Aires Herald.
“The journalists targeted are columnists Ari Lijalad and Carlos Pagni, as well as TV host Viviana Canosa. Canosa was a staunch Milei supporter until two years ago,” says the newspaper reports.
When someone suggested that our institute award Milei its annual prize a year ago, we cited his attitude toward freedom of speech as one of the reasons why we could not give him the award.
According to the Buenos Aires Herald report, Milei is unhappy that one of the journalists (Pagni) called him a Nazi. The other (Lijalad) wrote a column in which he characterized Milei as someone who “rules by inciting violence and hatred against those who think differently.” This was in response to the fact that Lijalad’s colleague was attacked by Milei’s supporters in mid-April, a few days after Milei wrote on Twitter that “people don’t hate journalists enough.”
The third journalist (Canos) said that Milei was an authoritarian despot and compared him to dictators. According to Javier Milei, this is sufficient ground for suing a journalist. Not every organization or individual has the financial and time resources to sue the country’s president in court. Therefore, lawsuits and even threats of lawsuits lead to a restriction of criticism of the president and have a chilling effect on public debate. This should be of great concern to us.
Milei is thus following in the footsteps of his idol and a great opponent of freedom of speech, Donald Trump, who has repeatedly stated publicly that the United States should “open up” its libel laws.
In the United States, the Supreme Court found (in a case involving a lawsuit against the New York Times) that in order for a plaintiff to succeed in a defamation suit, if they are a public figure, the plaintiff must prove that the statement was made even though the defendant knew it was false or made it with reckless disregard for the truth.
The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with ‘actual malice’ – that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.
However, what bothers Milei and Trump is not even false factual statements. Whether someone is an authoritarian or a Nazi is not a “provable statement of fact” in the American free-speech tradition. These are opinions that are categorically protected. You can express the most ridiculous opinion, but it is not and cannot be defamation.
You may argue that Milei is not the president of the United States and that, after all, we do not have such strong protection of opinions in the Czech Republic. However, should we not expect politicians not to sue their critics? Personally, I would go so far as to say that people in public office should not be able to file lawsuits for defamation. At the very least, we should not want censorial lawsuits to be filed by someone whom uninformed people celebrate as a liberal savior.
In February, Milei restricted the activities of journalists in parliament “to give more space to the guests of the Presidency.”
Incidentally, Argentina is falling in the press freedom rankings published by Reporters Without Borders. Compared to last year, Argentina has dropped 21 places to 87th, between Bosnia and Malaysia. The report says:
Insults, defamation, and threats from Javier Milei’s administration toward journalists and media critical of his regime have become commonplace since he took office. In addition, new policies worsen preexisting trends, such as the high concentration and lack of transparency in media ownership and the increasing precariousness of the journalism profession.
In a year and a half in office, Javier Milei has pushed through some good economic changes (such as rent deregulation and removing barriers to free trade). However, these must be weighed against his other actions in office – a corrupt crypto scam (for which he should have been removed from office), a war on marijuana, and illegal nominations to the Supreme Court. It seems that with Trump in office, the cowardly Milei no longer even dares to support Ukraine.
We do not yet know what Milei’s final score will be. However, we should not turn a blind eye to his excesses and should treat him as critically as any other politician. If he falsely claims to be a liberal and invokes liberal icons such as Ludwig von Mises, we should treat him with even greater criticism and skepticism.
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