The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted Florence Hartmann of contempt of the court Monday for disclosing confidential information in a genocide case. She was sentenced to pay a fine of 7,000 Euros. 

By Karl Dowling

Hartmann, a one-time spokesperson for former ICTY Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, disclosed the contents of two appeals chamber decisions from the Slobodan Milošević case in a book she authored in 2007 as well as in an Internet article published the following year. Frederiek de Vlaming is a lecturer at the Amsterdam Center for International Law.

She said that Hartmann’s defence was based around the idea, “that the information published was well known in Serbia among people who have studied it and among Human Rights organisations”. The court dismissed the defence argument that the information disclosed by Ms. Hartmann was already put in the public domain by the tribunal, as well as her application for protective measures.

The fact that Hartmann spent six years in the capacity of the spokesperson of the Prosecutor, the court ruled, meant that she was well aware of what the confidentiality of a decision entailed.

The Chamber further found that Hartmann's conduct could deter sovereign states from cooperating with the Tribunal where the provision of evidentiary material is concerned.

De Vlaming added that, “for future handlings by the court it is important for authorities or countries that operate with the court to know that their information is safe with the court, and as a matter of principal I think it’s important to keep it like that”.

“This…impacts upon the Tribunal’s ability to exercise its jurisdiction to prosecute and punish serious violations of humanitarian law as prescribed by its mandate,” Judge Bakone Justice Moloto, presiding at the Hartmann trial, said.

“Public confidence in the effectiveness of protective measures, orders and decisions is vital to the success of the work of the Tribunal.”

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The full text of the summary of the Judgement can be found, in English, here
 

An information sheet on the case can be found here

(Photo: ICTY)