The Court on Grillo's sentence: "Criticism should not be based on lies"

"The right to criticize, even the political one, is a precious asset of democracy. It is one of the pillars on which the democratic state is founded. If the right to criticize is lacking, democracy is lacking. However, it cannot go beyond nor can it be accepted beyond the concrete sense of reasonableness;

; it cannot be confused with a denigratory lie; it cannot constitute a denigratory lie aimed at a personal attack harmful to the dignity of the person".

For these reasons, the judges of the third criminal section of the Bari Court of Appeal, on 30 September 2022, sentenced Beppe Grillo for aggravated defamation against the

.

The sentence, the reasons for which were filed in recent days, concerns only the compensation for damages, which will be quantified by the civil judge.

In the first instance the monocratic judge had acquitted Grillo.

The condemnation concerns some statements made by the founder of the M5s during the "Anno Zero" broadcast (Raidue) on 9 June 2011. Grillo spoke of the absence of the Bari parliamentarian in the Chamber during the vote on the proposal to merge the referendum on water to the administrative one of May 2011, accusing Capano (and the other absent Pd parliamentarians) - "through a blatant lie and an unmotivated attack on the person", writes the Court - of having deliberately failed the merger to boycott the popular consultation for the benefit of water privatization lobbies.

On the day of the vote, March 16, 2011, Capano - as was immediately clarified in a statement from the Democratic Party, the magistrates note -

.

"Despite this, Grillo packaged his television intervention - it is written in the sentence - by omitting that press release, thus denigrating, through a blatant lie and an unmotivated attack on the person, Capano", who sued the M5S leader.

"It is true - the judges wrote - we live in a post-truth era

, as it has been defined several times by eminent philosophers and sociologists. It is the opinion that replaces the truth. What matters is what I think , not what is",

and "constitutes the first and most important bulwark to protect civil coexistence".