The Court of Appeal of Florence overturns the first degree judgment: the photo of the treasurer of IV used by the weekly in 2021 regarding the “crafty people” of the vaccine was not denigrating
Francesco Bonifazi had collected 38,723 euros from Panorama for an article on the “crafty” people of the anti-Covid vaccine. Now he will have to return them and pay over 20,000 euros in legal costs. A double judicial mockery for the deputy and national treasurer of Italia viva, who had dragged the group’s weekly La Verità, the director Maurizio Belpietro and the journalist Giorgio Gandola, to court.
The Court of Appeal of Florence overturned the first degree conviction, ruling that reporting and criticizing the preferential lanes used by some politicians to get vaccinated during the pandemic does not constitute defamation. Not even when the criticism is harsh and denounces a “caste privilege”.
Bonifazi felt defamed. But it was the Fourth Civil Section of the Court of Appeal of Florence, presided over by Judge Carla Santese, who established that it was a legitimate exercise of the right to criticize on a topic of “undoubted public interest”, which completely overturned the first instance verdict which in January 2025 had produced the conviction in favor of the deputy (plus legal interest from the date of the event to the balance), as well as the reimbursement of the costs of the litigation and the sum of 2,500 euros as financial compensation.
As highlighted in the second instance sentence, however, in the article «it is never stated» that Bonifazi «did not practice the profession of lawyer» also because, the judges explain, «the journalist’s criticism was much broader» and placed the emphasis on a precise point: the politicians indicated (in addition to the treasurer of Italia viva, other beneficiaries of the vaccine had been preferentially mentioned both in the article and on the front page) did not fall into the category of fragile subjects neither due to age nor pathologies, and as regards the Tuscan deputy «also for having previously already contracted the virus from which he had recovered”, their decision to vaccinate themselves as a priority thanks to regional regulations “was morally and ethically reprehensible, an expression of caste privilege”.
The sentence of the Court of Appeal of Florence
The judges of first instance had also recognized a defamatory nature in the presence on the front page of photos of politicians who had been vaccinated thanks to the rules introduced by the Regions to expand the priority categories identified by the Conte government with the National Strategic Vaccination Plan.
The panel of the Fourth Civil Section of the Florentine Court of Appeal has a contrary opinion, which established: «Public and media exposure is inherent to the exercise of a political office». It is remembered that, being “directed to the pursuit of the interests of the community”, it cannot, in a democratic country, “escape the evaluative judgment of public opinion, even harshly critical ones”.
