The Right of Access Information and the Right to the Truth: observations on the role of the provincial State and the exercise of journalism in the judicial proceedings for the crimes against humanity carried out in the province of San Luis

Abstract

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) establishes that the access to information is a universal human right. Further rights recognized by other international treaties are: to seek, receive and spread information from the government; as well as the freedom of research, opinion, expression and transmission of thought. The Right to the Truth, however, is not contemplated in the international instruments. Its recognition went a long way through various decisions of judges and legal rulings of international human rights organisms. This paper aims at knowing the performance of the Government, the press and the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the two judicial cases for crimes against humanity developed in the Province of San Luis, in 2008 and 2013 respectively, as opposed to international human rights standards. To this end, personal interviews were conducted with the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the four press workers who covered the two judicial processes. These interviews disclose the attitude of the provincial State in its role as the main responsible for ensuring the guarantees of international human rights.