Judgment No CCZ 2/14 14 Const. Application No CCZ 78/12 Even if the state does not discharge its onerous burden of proof, the very existence of the crime creates the risk of wrongful accusation, investigation, prosecution and even conviction, with all the associated inconvenience and scandal. These ills can barely be corrected on appeal, and thus the crime could easily be used to cow courageous journalists. It is this brand of public disapproval that criminal law rightly casts on murderers, rapists and thieves, precisely for its deterrent potency. The same objective could not and should not apply to injurious speech, the borders of which are elusive and essentially subjective.” THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION On the international plane, it is not without significance that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has decried recourse to criminal defamation in order to stifle free speech: “Detention as a sanction for the peaceful expression of opinion is one of the most reprehensible practices employed to silence people and accordingly constitutes a serious violation of human rights”. In similar vein, in General Comment No. 34 (supra) at para. 47, the Human Rights Committee stipulates the following guidelines on defamation laws vis-à-vis the application of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: “Defamation laws must be crafted with care to ensure that they comply with paragraph 3 [the derogation clause in Article 19 of the Covenant], and that they do not serve, in practice, to stifle freedom of expression. …. Care should be taken by States Parties to avoid excessively punitive measures and penalties. …. States Parties should consider the decriminalisation of defamation and, in any case, the application of the criminal law should only be countenanced in the most serious of cases and imprisonment is never an appropriate penalty.” The Committee endorsed and applied these strictures in a complaint by one Alexander Adonis against the Government of the Philippines. The complaint involved the imprisonment of a radio broadcaster for alleged defamation. In its decision in