scholarly journals Has the Balance been Struck The Decision in Johncom Media Investments Limited v M 2009 4 SA 7 (CC)

Author(s):  
Latiefa Albertus

The case of Johncom Media Investments Limited v M 2009 4 SA 7 (CC) required of the Constitutional Court to strike a balance between the rights to privacy and the right to freedom of expression as a consequence of section 12 of the Divorce Act 70 of 1979. According to the Court, it felt that the "remedy" it provided was the best under the circumstances. However, there are certain concerns regarding the Court’s judgment which require clarification, possibly through legislative intervention

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-212
Author(s):  
Yayan Sopyan

Abstract: Questioning the Religious Freedom and blasphemy in Indonesia. The presence of the Constitutional Court in the reform era is the strengthening of the foundations of constitutionalism in the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia Year 1945. The Court in this case a role to enforce and the protector of the citizen's constitutional rights and the protector of the human rights. Including in this case, the right to religion and religious practices and teachings of their respective religions, in accordance with the constitutional mandate. However, on the other hand there is the discourse of freedom of expression and freedom of speech includes freedom to broadcast religious beliefs and understanding of the "deviant" and against the "mainstream" religious beliefs and understanding in general, as in the case of Ahmadiyah. The Court in this case is required to provide the best attitude when faced judicial review in this case still required in addition to guarding the constitution in order to run properly.   Abstrak: Menyoal Kebebasan Beragama dan Penodaan Agama di Indonesia. Kehadiran lembaga Mahkamah Konstitusi di era reformasi merupakan upaya penguatan terhadap dasar-dasar konstitusionalisme pada Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 1945. MK dalam hal ini berperan menegakkan dan melindungi hak-hak konstitusional warga negara (the protector of the citizen’s constitutional rights) dan pelindung HAM (the protector of the human rights). Termasuk dalam hal ini, hak untuk memeluk agama dan menjalankan ibadah serta ajaran agamanya masing-masing, sesuai dengan amanat konstitusi. Namun, disisi lain ada wacana kebebasan berekspresi dan kebebasan berpendapat termasuk didalamnya kebebasan untuk menyiarkan keyakinan dan pemahaman keagamaan yang “menyimpang” dan bertentangan dengan “mainstream” keyakinan dan pemahaman keagamaan pada umumnya, seperti dalam kasus Ahmadiyah. MK dalam hal ini dituntut untuk mampu memberikan sikap terbaik saat dihadapkan judicial review dalam kasus ini selain tetap dituntut untuk mengawal konstitusi agar dapat berjalan sebagaimana mestinya. DOI: 10.15408/jch.v2i2.2314


Author(s):  
José Mateos Martínez

RESUMEN: El presente artículo analiza el reforzamiento de la libertad de expresión que se produce cuando ésta es ejercida en conexión con el derecho de defensa, y se centra en un concreto supuesto que ha sido recientemente examinado por el Tribunal Constitucional: el ejercicio del derecho de defensa en primera persona por un funcionario que es objeto de un expediente disciplinario. A la vez que estudiamos la solución dada por el TC al citado caso, reflexionamos sobre los efectos de la misma más allá del caso específico que resuelve, planteando la posibilidad de su extrapolación a la generalidad de supuestos donde el ciudadano ejerce su derecho de defensa en primera persona y sin asistencia letrada. ABSTRACT: The present article analyzes the reinforcement of the freedom of expression that takes place when this one is exercised in connection by the right of defense, and centres on a concrete supposition that has been recently examined by the Constitutional Court: the exercise of the right of defense in the first person for a civil servant who is an object of a disciplinary process. Simultaneously that we study the solution given by the Constitutional Court to the mentioned case, we think about the effects of the same one beyond the specific case that resolves, raising the possibility of its extrapolation to the generality of suppositions where the citizen exercises his right of defense in the first person and without legal aid service.PALABRAS CLAVE: libertad de expresión, derecho de defensa, funcionario público, autotutela, expediente disciplinario.KEYWORDS: freedom of expression, right of defense, civil servant, autoguardianship, disciplinary process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-83
Author(s):  
Janusz Roszkiewicz

This article concerns the right to the protection of religious feelings as a value which justifies a restriction of freedom of expression. The right to the protection of religious feelings can be protected by three methods: civil, penal and administrative. The issue is discussed from the point of view of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the European Convention on Human Rights, with particular emphasis on the case-law of the Polish Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 274-302
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Porto Macedo Junior

Abstract Freedom of Expression is becoming a theme of growing importance and visibility in Brazil. Newspapers report daily legal suits against “hate speech” concerning race and religious discrimination. Many courts are also imposing high compensation damages that are challenging the “right to ridicule” in comedy shows and newspapers cartoons. The Brazilian public opinion in general tends to be sympathetic to more restrictive rules that may threaten freedom of expression in Brazil. There is nowadays in Brazil an unexpected agreement among the right wing, religious groups, and many human rights movements that support a European model of free speech. In many ways, the “Brazilian Model” based on balancing doctrine and a vague conceptualization of Human Dignity gives a lot of discretion for courts to decide the limits of freedom of expression. Court decisions based on balancing rhetoric is becoming dominant in Brazilian Constitutional court and usually try to avoid some epistemological issues concerning objectivity and moral justification. This article advocates that Brazilian interpretation of freedom expression has a lot to learn from the US model and doctrine. The US more strict and conceptual jurisprudence on this issue offers a powerful and democratic alternative to the balancing model and represents a rich conceptual analysis still unknown by Brazilian courts.


Author(s):  
Szabolcs Stock

The aim of the article is to present how one can excercise their freedom of expression through acts. I focus ont the decisions of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights and the U. S. Supreme court. I analyze these decisions, and compare the fundamental rights that can collide, such as freedom of expression versus the right to property, which one should prevail when they come into collision. I also study how one can decide, whether the act should fall within the protected circle of the freedom of expression, or it should be penalized as a crime, or misdemeanor.


Author(s):  
Vladimir Suchkov ◽  
Vladimir Filonov

The authors examine the juridical idea of extremist used in the criminal law of the Russian Federation. This work is an attempt to solve the problem of differentiating between this concept and the freedom of expression. The establishment of boundaries and limits of these phenomena is important for both lawmakers and law enforcers. The authors use the attributes of the phenomenon of «extremism» in an attempt to understand its form and contents. To achieve this, they analyze views on different scholars on extremism, the law and its amendments, clarifications of the highest court authorities of the country regarding the object of this research, and study the doctrinal practice of experts – linguists and psychologists. They synthesize the discovered meanings of extremism and identify its features. The obtained information allowed the authors to conclude that the definition of extremism formulated in the law is not precise, it lacks clear boundaries and, at the categorial level, could be viewed as an abstract concept. This concept, incorporated in the law, has a negative impact on the quality of the law and impedes the right choice of interpretation by national courts. The fuzziness of legal prescriptions has not yet been eliminated by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the law enforcement practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. All this creates endless opportunities for interpreting the law at the local level. The authors present disturbing statistics that show a tremendous growth in the number of offences in this area in recent years. They believe that the cause of the problem is the above-mentioned law that allows excessive interpretation by the law enforcer. The presented research deals with the bottlenecks of constitutional law as it analyzes the freedom of expression with its boundaries and limits. The authors discuss the conflict of constitutional and criminal laws from the viewpoint of enforcing specific law clauses. The research includes constructive criticism of the instruments used by experts (linguists and psychologists) who perform their tasks for criminal cases and materials on speech goals, which belongs to the domain of criminalistics. The authors present their own vision of this problem based on the opinion of scholars, historical experience and court practice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
VALERIA GELUNENKO ◽  
◽  
SERGEY ANDREEV

In order to reveal the content of political pluralism, the article considers conceptual, conceptual and interpretative approaches to its definition in the context of constitutional relations with the foundations of the constitutional system, constitutional values, freedom of speech and expression. It is revealed that the absence of the term “political pluralism” in the constitutional text of Russia is made up for by its disclosure through the interpretation of the related principles of “ideological diversity”, “political diversity” and “multiparty”. It is this perspective of the study of political pluralism that helps to justify it as the basis of the constitutional system of Russia. It is noted that since freedom of speech and expression are associated primarily with political freedoms, they are most logically associated with political pluralism. It is proved that the latter implies the presence of citizens in society who have their own interests, adhere to different views on the development of the state and society and unite on this basis in groups, as well as finding a compromise between them based on common ideals and values when solving issues of national importance. The analysis of the motivational part of the decisions of the constitutional Court of the Russian Federation served to reveal the content of political pluralism. The authors concluded that the structure of political pluralism consists of political diversity, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and political compromise. As a generalization, the authors noted that the principle of political pluralism is revealed by this body through guarantees of political diversity and the possibility of finding a compromise of political interests at the level of the Parliament. In addition, it was stressed that the principle of political diversity in a democratic state is ensured through the functioning of such institutions of direct democracy as freedom of speech, free elections, freedom of peaceful public events, the right to Association and freedom of their activities, including political parties. It is concluded that the coordination of political interests should be provided by parliaments of various levels.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Milinković

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected all aspects of people’s daily lives. In response to the pandemic, many countries declared a state of emergency. Extraordinary measures have been implemented to reduce the spread of the new coronavirus. Some of these measures require significant restrictions of fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the right to privacy, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, religious freedoms etc. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the BiH and entity authorities adopted decisions to provide a legal basis for implementation of extraordinary measures. The paper deals with the restrictive measures implemented during the COVID-19 crisis in BiH and their impact on human rights realization. The relevant decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH are also analysed, including the decision in case AP-3683/20 according to which certain restrictive measures are contrary to the right to respect of private life and the freedom of movement.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 290
Author(s):  
Anbar Jayadi

This article reviews the interpretation of the Constitutional Court (the Court) on the Article 28J paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution by looking into the rulings related to the Information and Electronic Transaction Law. These rulings are chosen because, in those rulings, tensions between individual and public interest are apparent. For example, the tension between the right to privacy and freedom of expression, and the tensions between freedom of expression and public order. The rulings that will be studied in this writing are Ruling No. 50/PUU-VI/2008, Ruling No. 2/PUU-VII/2009, Ruling No. 5/PUU-VIII/2010, Ruling No. 52/PUU-XI/2013, and Ruling No. 20/PUU-XIV/2016. In studying those rulings, this article use a legal method namely the interpretation of arguments, e.g. what are the arguments provided by the claimants in the case in relation to the Article 28J paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution and how does the Court responds to such arguments. Additionally, this writing will also compare the rulings to each other to portray the “variety” of interpretation by the Court over the time. Furthermore, this article will compare the Article 28J paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution and the Court’s interpretation of it to other standards of limitation in other human rights instruments such as European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in order to depict what are the distinctive features of limitation of rights in Indonesian regime in comparison to other regimes. Last but not least, this article analyze what are the lesson learned from studying the Court’s interpretation and the possible consequence of such interpretation to the human rights protection in Indonesia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 273
Author(s):  
Cekli Setya Pratiwi

This study examines the constitutionality of Indonesia’s Anti-Blasphemy Law, which has been challenged unsuccessfully at the Constitutional Court on three occasions, in 2009, 2012, and 2018. While the Court has acknowledged the law’s provisions are open to multiple interpretations, it insists on maintaining the law as it is, on the grounds that the right to religious expression is not absolute, as freedom and rights are restricted under Article 28J of the 1945 Constitution. The Court believes that canceling the law would create a dangerous legal vacuum. The ambiguity of the Court’s decisions on the constitutionality of the Anti-Blasphemy Law is illustrated in recent blasphemy cases that have not been explored in previous studies. This study uses a doctrinal legal approach to examine why the Anti-Blasphemy Law is flawed and to analyze to what extent the ‘particular constitutionalism’ approach influenced the Court’s decisions when declaring the constitutionality of the law. As such, the Court’s misinterpretation of the core principles of the competing rights – the right to religious freedom and the right to freedom of expression – and its standard limitation, have been ignored. The findings of this study show that in dealing with the Anti-Blasphemy Law, the Court has a narrow and limited recognition of human rights law. The Court’s fear of revoking the Anti-Blasphemy Law is based only on assumptions and is less supported by facts. The Court has failed to realize that the implementation of the flawed Anti-Blasphemy Law in various cases has triggered public disorder, with people taking justice into their own hands.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document