Justice condemns ART for qualifying lawyers as “caranchos”

The civil judge María Rebaudi sentenced the Union of Labor Risk Insurers (UART) to pay $ 2,000,000 in collective moral damages to the Federal Capital Public Bar Associationwho filed the lawsuit.

It is because the UART would describe legal professionals in the mass media as “Carancho”, alerting the company – in particular the workers – about the damage that can be caused by contacting lawyers and not calling their ART. “.” This derogatory reference to birds of prey certainly affects professional honor“said the judge.

The announcement was made by the UART will appeal the first instance sentence. He argues that the UART and its constituent companies “want to reiterate that at no time did their 2015 advertising campaign aim to offend lawyers; Proof of this is that nowhere in the text is that profession mentioned. If we wanted to refer to lawyers, we would. We just try to warn against the bad practices that are being put in place different people who profit from the wounds of others. We were motivated by the desire to highlight the problem that has afflicted us for some time, in which different people are involved regardless of their profession “.

In the grounds of the sentence, the judge argues that “the expressions used in their publications (of the ARTs) refer to legal professionals as” CARANCHOS ” it goes beyond the framework of the exercise of the constitutional right to freedom of expressionbeing unscrupulous and dishonorable towards the legal profession “.

In relation to this question, the UART states that “the similarity of Carancho, in a context of high and growing litigation, has been used as a metaphor to draw attention to the circumstances, forms and ways of acting of unscrupulous people who Many Bar Associations in the country were also questioned“, Thus denying to refer to lawyers, and conclude:” our will, expressed in the various instances of this dispute, is to collaborate with the Professional Orders of Lawyers to pursue the improvement and strengthening of the System of Professional Risks and good professional practices.

In addition to the compensatory sentence, he ordered the publication of the terms of the sentence, in the newspapers La Nación, Clarín and Diario Popular, which had been used to disseminate the insulting publications, “with the same quality and category of the publications for which they were published.” judgment”.