The Question of Whether Calling a Leader a “Bastard” is Defamatory
Roberto Saviano
Here’s a question for you: Is expressing the word "bastard" at someone an act of defaming them?
You might think and say, “no.” But reality says the answer is dependent on context, country, jurisdiction, legal interpretation and judge.
“Say what?”
"Italian writer, journalist and political commentator Roberto Saviano is in the court system in ‘a defamation trial brought against him by Italy’s newly installed, right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
“The case is related to an incident that took place prior to Meloni taking the reins of power in Italy in October,” reports Melanie Goodfellow at Deadline.
Without going too far into the depths of the details about the situation, Saviano said of Meloni that she was a “bastard” because of her reported anti-immigrant stance.
The judge assigned with the responsibility of an initial review of the case decided that the “epithet bastard” was “beyond the rights of political criticism.”
Thus, the case is headed to trial. Here’s how Saviano communicated that got him in trouble, at least for now.
“Talking about the dead child and his mother, Saviano railed against the pair, saying: ‘You remember all that rubbish that was said about the NGOs, about them being ‘sea taxis’, ‘cruises’. All that comes to mind is bastards. To Meloni, to Salvini, bastards, how could you? How was it possible to describe all this pain like that?” she wrote.
How the word, “bastard” is defined and interpreted matters. One definition is, “a despicable, or thoroughly disliked person.”
To call someone despicable might seem to be nothing more than sharp opinion that no one assumes to mean much more than that, yet in the minds and hands of authority and power, the person labeling someone as such might result in legal action, at least somewhere.
Surprising, yes. A warning too, maybe.
The law seems clear. People are not. Thus, interpretation and emotions drive actions, even legal action. And in this story, that’s what’s happening.
Saviano has vocal supporters and maybe the case will be dismissed or a relative slap on the wrist occurs, yet with a lot of stress before that happens. Or maybe, Saviano gets punished in a way for his words that really hurts and causes suffering.
Did he defame Meloni? It doesn’t appear so yet we don’t know how a court will rule.
Michael Toebe is the founder at Reputation Quality, serving and helping successful individuals and organizations in further building, protecting, restoring or reconstruction reputation as a professional and personal “asset.”
