San Juan, Puerto Rico — The Puerto Rico Supreme Court on Friday summarily denied an appeal by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo seeking to stop the practice of restricting journalists’ access to press conferences at La Fortaleza by requiring a credential issued by the Puerto Rico Department of State.
The court’s order did not address on the merits the constitutional challenge raised by the CPI over the validity of requiring a press certification issued by the Department of State as a condition for access to press conferences at the seat of the executive branch. That was the point made in a dissent by Associate Justice Ángel Colón Pérez. Chief Justice Maite Oronoz Rodríguez, who, like Colón Pérez, was appointed by the Popular Democratic Party, and Justice Luis Estrella Martínez, appointed by the New Progressive Party, also dissented, saying they would have taken up the case and decided it on the merits. They wrote that this would have been “an ideal case to define, under the law, the balance of interests and the necessary contours of a controversy that reflects a clash between the exercise of constitutional rights to freedom of the press and the interests of the State.”
CPI Executive Director Carla Minet said: “Our justice system failed freedom of the press, and the current administration has managed to advance its intention to limit the press’s access to scrutinize and question what the government does and how public funds are used. It is shameful that they are being allowed to do this. We clearly see an effort, both by the executive branch and by the legislative branch, which passed anti-transparency measures a few months ago, to curtail the work of the press. And now, with this decision, the judicial branch joins in, with both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court issuing decisions in this case that do not even bother to ground themselves in law. It is a government using its power in an antidemocratic way across all three branches. That should outrage all of us.”
She added: “La Fortaleza has said it is working on a new protocol. In the meantime, it said entry would be allowed without the credential. We’ll see whether they keep their word and what that protocol they say they are drafting actually says. Let’s remember that four months ago La Fortaleza claimed this protocol already existed, and that turned out not to be true. Now they say they’re working on it.”
In his dissent, Colón Pérez said the requirement imposed by the executive branch “seriously harms a constitutional right of the highest order,” referring to freedom of the press. He also noted that both the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of Puerto Rico enshrine freedom of the press as a fundamental right, and that limits on that right must be interpreted narrowly.
The dissent also emphasized that the press certification established by law and regulation was intended to facilitate the issuance of a removable placard or special parking permit to members of the active general press corps. He therefore underscored: “At no point was it intended to serve as a mechanism to determine who may, or may not, cover press conferences held at La Fortaleza.”
Later in the dissent, Colón Pérez concluded that the Department of State “did not have, and does not have, the authority to issue press certifications for a further use” such as access to press conferences at La Fortaleza, and warned that doing so would place the agency outside the powers delegated to it by the Legislative Assembly.
Colón Pérez ended his dissent with a direct criticism of the court’s majority: “Today, a majority of my colleagues on this bench failed in that responsibility,” he wrote, referring to the duty to safeguard freedom of the press.
The Course of the Case
The CPI sued the governor and Press Secretary Marieli Padró Raldiris last December after journalists Luis Valentín Ortiz and Noel Algarín Martínez were barred from attending press conferences at La Fortaleza because they did not have a certification from the Department of State.
In late February, Judge Iris L. Cancio González of the San Juan Superior Court ruled that requiring journalists to present such a credential to attend press conferences at the Executive Mansion violates freedom of the press. Cancio ordered the González Colón administration to stop the practice.
On March 20, the government went to the Court of Appeals and then filed before the Supreme Court a petition for intra-jurisdictional certification and a motion for auxiliary relief of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court may issue an intra-jurisdictional certification in urgent circumstances to take up cases pending in lower courts. A motion for auxiliary relief of jurisdiction, meanwhile, seeks to have a higher court assume jurisdiction over a case so it can stay and set aside the decisions of lower courts until it resolves the issues before it. The governor also asked the Supreme Court to reverse Judge Cancio’s ruling. Her attorneys in the case are Ramón Rosario Cortés and Gian Carlo Oliver Martínez.
In a unanimous March resolution, the Supreme Court denied the requests to review Judge Cancio González’s ruling at that stage. The case then returned to the Court of Appeals, which ruled against the CPI, and the news organization appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
