Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Freedom of Press - The right to Publish and Privacy


Freedom of the Press: The right to publish and the Right to privacy

The Indian Constitution Confers  no special rights or privileges to the Press as does the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. However, Article 19(i)(a) of the constitution does guarantee freedom of expressions to every citizen which includes:

(i)     The right to lay what sentiment s/ he  pleases before the public, or the to impart information and the ideas,

(ii)   The right to receive information and ideas others through any lawful medium.
It is the Article that gives editors and journalists to right to publish the news or any kind of information and to comment on public affairs, and the public the right to receive information of which the United Nations Charter of Human Rights speaks forcefully. These are fundamental human rights. The Freedom of Press rests on the same fundamental rights and implies the right to print, publish comment and criticize without any interference of the state and public authority. It includes the right not to publish or comment as well.  However the freedom of the Press is not absolute; neither is the freedom of expression. Public interest has to be safe guarded; so has private interest, and the right to piracy.

Public interest is safe guarded by article 19(2) which lies down  reasonable limitations to the freedom of expression in matters affecting;
(a)   Sovereignty and integrity of the states
(b)   Security of the state
(c)   Friendly relations with the foreign countries
(d)   Public order
(e)   Decency and morality
(f)     Contempt of court
(g)   Defamation and
(h)   Incitement to an offence

Freedom of Press
The Right to Privacy
The right to privacy, a fundamental and legal right, is enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution which says no person shall he deprived of his life or personal liberty, except according to procedure estabhshed by law’. The expression ‘personal liberty’, according to Jastic P.C Bhagwati (in the Menaka Gandhi case, 1978), is of the widest amplitude and it covers a variety of rights which go to constitute the personal liberty of man’. Personal liberty gives dignity to the individual, providing him / her the freedom to live his / her own life and to do his / her own thing. It is the necessary means to creativity, growth, autonomy, relaxation and mental health That explains why the dignity of the individual is ensured in the preamble of our Constitution.

Besides the Constitution, the Law of Tors assures the right to privacy of the individual This is a branch of law based on various decisions of judges on aspects of civil wrongs which are not provided by the statutory Laws but which constitutes the first principal of Law based on various decisions of judges reationg to civil  wrongs.

Further, privacy is protected by laws relating to defamation, under the Indian Penal Code. Defamation is making known through words spoken or written, or though signs or visible representations (e.g. painting , a photograph, a cartoon, an illustration), an imputation which is intended to harm the reputation of a person. The exporsure of the private love – lives of films stars in film periodicals can thus be challenged under the law. However. It must be pointed out that persons who are in public life cannot claim privacy to the same extent as ordinary citizens. Sometimes, a case can be made out for the view that such exposures have been done ‘ in good faith’, and in the public interest or for the ‘public good’, thus exposures of political scandals by reporters are not always defamatory. But care has to be taken that the reports or photographs published are not obscene, do not offend morality or decency, and above all, do not affect public order, further these parts needs to be substantially correct so it not defamatory to comment on or criticize the conduct of a public figure in the discharge of his or her public duties.

There is, then a confilict between the Right to publish and the right to privacy. Yet both are equally precious in a free society. While commercial explitation of the private lives of public figures, and of lesser fry, can help step up sales of publications, a balance has to be struck between the two rights. Journalists. Therefore, have to tread warily lest they be hauled up by the law for infringement of priacy. They have to act in ‘good faith’ and in  the public interest’; they must not forget that they have no legal basis to keep their sources of information to themselves. Sources have to be disclosed when asked for, either by the police, or by the Courts of Law. In most cases, however, the law respects the confidentiality of the journalists’ sources unless public interest and justice are  involved.      
      
In addition to the right to publish reports on events and individuals keeping in mind the public interest, a journalist is privileged to publish ‘a substantially true report of either House of Parliament or the Legislative Assembly’. This ‘ privilege’ was withdrawn during the intern Emergency, but was reinstated by the 44th Amendment Act, 1978.

Press Codes and Ethics
Codes of ethics  for the journalist began to be formulated since the early 1920’s. Today more than 60 countries around the world have drawn up and are enforcing such codes. Of course they vary in form and scope in one country or region to another. In some countries, the codes have been voluntarily drawn up and are imposed by professional bodies of journalists; in others, they are imposed by the Government in power. Several states enforce such codes which speak of such high minded principles as objectivity, impartiality, truthfulness and freesom of information.

The Mac Bride Report states that all journalists have responsibilities to their own convictions, but equally important are their responsibilities to tine public . the report spells out journalists’ responsibilities;
  1. Contractual responsibility in relation to their media and their internal organization.
  2. A social responsibility entailing obligations towards public opinion and society as a whole.
  3. Responsibility or liability deriving from the obligation to comply with the law.
  4. Responsibility towards the international community, relationg to respect for human values.
Media Ethics
Journalistic codes usually take into account the following Concepts :
  • Safeguarding freedom of information.
  • Freedom of access to information sources.
  • Objectivity, accuracy, truthfulness or the non –misrepresentation of facts.
  • Responsibility to the public, and its rights and interests and in relation to national, racial and religious communities, the nation, the State and the maintenance of peace.
  • The obligation to refrain from calumny, unfounded accusations, slander, violations of privacy.
  • Integrity and independence.
  • The right of reply and of correction.
  • Respect of professional confidentiality.
  • Consideration for the cultural, social or ethnic codes of individual countries.
However, “ The scope of professional ethics is much wider than the texts o legal codes. For in attempting to achieve a just balance between freedom and responsibility, the ethical aspects of this dichotomy depend not only on conscious decisions by a journalist, but also on practices in the media and the general social environment.”
The Mac Bride Report says that the adoption of codes of ethics at national, and in some cases, at the regional level is desirable, provided that such codes are prepared and adopted by the profession itself, without Government interference. It recommends that Codes of Ethics aim at the following objectives:
  • To protect the consumer readers, listeners, viewers, or the public in general;
  • To protect and inspire the working journalist, broadcaster or others directly concerned with the gathering, writing, processing and presenting of news and opinions;
  • To guide editors and others who take full legal responsibility for what is published and broadcast;
  • To define the responsibilities of proprietors, shareholders and Government who are in a position of absolute control over any particular form of mass media communications activity;
  • To deal with issues of advertisers and others who buy into the services of the media.


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