Talk:Matija Babić

Outdated information as of 2022 and proposed changes

I would like to propose and implement changes to this article in order to remove outdated information and information on criminal convictions that is now long obsolete by Croatian law standards, as well as to point out a few details.

To elaborate, the subject person is currently not holding the title of “author and editor of the [Index.hr] project” on the index.hr website, and to my knowledge, has not held this title for a significant amount of time, at least several years. Source reference no. 8 is a dead link. For this reason I would like to remove this sentence in its entirety, or perhaps add a clarification that the subject’s name is no longer associated with the index.hr website, and he does not appear to hold any position of authority in the official company records made available by Croatian authorities (see official Croatian company records on index.hr).

His criminal past also appears to be no longer relevant enough to be included in the article for several reasons. The sources regarding the criminal convictions all rely on Croatian news portals. The news portals in Croatia are allowed to share current information on public individuals, in which case the right to personal privacy of those persons is overridden by public interest. However, the information on convictions in the article is no longer current, and arguably no longer related to a person of broader public interest either. This is due to the age of the events described, as the Croatian law standards consider M.B. “fully rehabilitated”. Specifically, Republic of Croatia’s Act on Legal Consequences of Conviction, Criminal Records and Rehabilitation (OG 143/12, 105/15, 32/17) states this in articles 18. and 19. (please use machine translation if necessary) and forbids the use of such outdated information, likely in order to enable the person to resume normal societal standing after a specified time elapses. This makes the information on those news portals no longer current, and themselves likely illegal according to cited Croatian law. Not to delve into the legality of the news portals publishing too much, what is relevant for Wikipedia is that this fact may constitute a form of libel because of said laws.

The individual has also practically not been a public person in Croatia, to my knowledge, al least from the time mentioned in the interview from source no. 14, and is no longer active in public life.

And lastly, but importantly, the information on the criminal activities specified in the article has not been considered in the broader context of high corruption perception index of the courts in Croatia in general, as hinted in source no. 14 as well. The results of the research on corruption of the judiciary in Croatia are devastating as confirmed by official EU surveys here and here, so the convictions need to be taken with a hefty grain of salt.

For all the reasons specified I would move to remove the problematic sources and text references to rehabilitated criminal activities. For the same reasons, the category of “People convicted of fraud” should be removed as this is not really a defining characteristic of the subject person, and is not in line with the local law and currently serves as a hindrance to the person’s right to rehabilitation. The name of another (rehabilitated as well according to law) person is needlessly included as well (V.Š.V.).

CroScribe (talk) 13:06, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Cited articles pertain to the legal rights of the person that had been convicted of a felony. They forbid using the fact that the person had been convicted of a felony to limit or revoke a person's rights, or to discriminate against.

However, they do not forbid making such factual information public, which would limit freedom of speech and information, and goes against the Croatian constitution and the charter of rights of the European union. 5.133.47.43 (talk) 11:30, 14 June 2024 (UTC)