Final Word from Tuesday, November 20, 2018

It's inconceivable that Seznam.cz's lawyers don't know that Switzerland is a sovereign country with its own laws. Yet the legal analysis released by the company to justify its report about Andrej Babiš Jr. fails to acknowledge that the conversation with Babiš Jr. took place in a foreign country where such recordings without the consent of all participants is a criminal act. Seznam is a commercial entity and apparently decided to take a calculated risk. Its behavior should be judged in this light. An entirely different issue is the way Czech TV has forsaken its legal obligation to report the news fairly. It has systematically failed to acknowledge (here and here, for example) that Seznam's reporters likely committed crimes in the interest of getting a scoop. ČT's deputy news editor, František Lutonský, even said that we were lying when we invoked specific articles of the Swiss penal code. Seznam might have violated Swiss law; ČT is answerable under Czech law. [ Czech Republic Television Twitter zprávy ]