The Request for TV broadcasting of the inquest statement in the “Boudou Case”

Abstract

On 5^th June 2014, the Vice President of the Argentine Republic, Amado Boudou, requested the live telecast of his inquest statement in the lawsuit No.1.302/12, for the crimes of bribery and incompatible negotiations, which is being carried out at the Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 4 of the City of Buenos Aires. The Judge Mr. Ariel Lijo denied this request as well as the one that followed, referring to the authorization that would interest the accused of entering the room audio and video equipment to register his act of defense. The hearing took place behind closed doors and without any press participation. Different public servants of the Judiciary got involved in a media confrontation, despite the fact that the only official information released by the Court limited to the announcement of the verdict and due publications of both resolutions on the website, without any comment being made to the press on the logics or reasons.

For the current work this litigation phase is being analyzed from the point of view of crisis communication management in terms of conflicts and rights at stake, structural characteristics of the Judiciary, behavior of their internal and external public servants, as well as the social and technological environment of the paradigm of the criminal procedure in force; while some tools are pointed out and described which might have been used by the Judiciary to help mitigate the strength of such opponent forces as the ones seen during this investigation period of great social impact.