As a graduate of the philosophy of law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, for several years he struggled like others with this question of denying historical facts to be covered by scientific reviews of history and what is of interest to law. Just think about the basic directions and how they can be protected from procedural formalities or from large indirect obtenção. And just as tribunals may be called upon to appreciate and decide the limits and abuses of fundamental direction, so they may be directed to opinion and freedom of speech, which we many times see as an image of identity from politics in a democracy and its own democracy.
A classic case is Fr The Garaudy casewelcomed by the French tribunals and finally by the Tribunal Europeu dos Direitos Humanos in 2003. Before the story, Roger Garaudy wrote a book explaining how the Holocaust is not understood and cannot be explained, because according to the article it is nothing serious, from a technical point of view it is possible to kill many people during this period under the conditions of execution and the chemicals used. He denied the existence of gas chambers and accused the Jewish community of investigating “lies” for political and financial purposes.
French tribunals, faced with a French national law that prohibits Holocaust denial, convict Garaudy and ban the sale of the book. He appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that he had been attacked or directed to freedom of expression.
The European Tribunal also took into account that Roger Garaudy abuses his right by denying proven historical, documented facts and resorting to false evidence presented as a scientific review. Nessa Medida, the aim of her work was the simple rehabilitation of the Nazi regime.
When we could think about it differently, we concluded, for example, that Holocaust denial is contrary to “the values that underpin the Convention (Europeia dos Direitos Humanos): justice and peace.” Freedom of speech and the protection of human dignity essentially have absolute limits, and the rights of victims of crimes against humanity prevail over claims for freedom from a falsified “historical overview”.
The legitimacy of restricting freedom of expression in a democracy, as well as the protection of democracy itself and the values that accompany it, is obsolete. I wasn’t born with Twitter or Trump. As is the case with the self-restraint of political power in the face of the Dark Ages, even if it is not tied to a ruler. This could not be denied if it were a natural direction, regardless of personal convenience or circumstantial direction accompanying it.
Now, in the era of political schools in Portugal, it will sometimes be necessary, for the sake of style or apoios, to evaluate the relation to the truth of the candidates. It is that the nature of truth is the truth of truth, it has not stopped doing as much as it does. The praise of the New State and Salazar by two candidates on the subject of corruption is a good example of many. Corruption during the New Era was so little known and quantified because it was structural and spread in society, in society, now, without business and without autonomy in the investigation of crimes. It was not a matter of discovery and discussion, it was a matter of tacit consent. And Salazar de facto did not want to sell himself for less: in a way, it was the continuity of power and narcissistic messianism that led him to the fact that even when he reached the heavens of Santa Comba, he always felt like he was in the famous escapade of paradise.
To demand “the three Salazars” is not to insist on comfortable historical ignorance. It is in order to manipulate time, in the mercy it bestows on the broken, and in the finality that applies to the marrow, that I can propose a true alternative to that which this time does not live, or to that confusion or vigor and hope that one feels, now disembodied, as an intrinsic property of the regime. And to be honest, one simple thing will be a lie.
Professor da Faculdade de Direito of the Universidade de Lisboa
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