CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Karaliova, Alena |
|---|---|
| Title | Defamatory Speech against Public Officials: the Standard of Protection in the Law and Practice of the United States of America, the European Court of Human Rights, and Belarus |
| Summary | A tension has always existed between defamation laws and freedom of speech. Such laws are designed to protect the right to reputation, even if this requires some interference with the right to freedom of expression. Every state solves this tension in its own way, by affording a greater degree of protection to one or the other right. An especially sharp conflict between the two rights arises in cases of defamatory statements directed against public officials, since restrictions on this kind of speech may seriously curtail free discussion on matters of public concern. The aim of this work is to identify, evaluate, and compare the standards of protection for defamatory speech against public officials established in the law and practice of the USA, the European Convention on Human Rights, and Belarus, focusing specifically on existing defenses and criminal sanctions for defamation. By using this comparative method combined with the Belarusian case study and normative research, it will be shown that the standards which have emerged under American and the ECHR case-law sufficiently protect free speech, though have some shortcomings, while the Belarusian system is obviously overprotective for the right to reputation of public officials. |
| Supervisor | Hamilton, Michael |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/karaliova_alena.pdf |
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