Research On The Relationship Between Press Freedom And Judicial Independence

Press freedom and judicial independence are two equally important values of democratic countries under the rule of law. Press freedom is one of the cornerstones of democratic politics while judicial independence is an important symbol of a country under rule of law. The two of them are inextricably related in a complicated way. In practice, the media and the judiciary start from their own standpoint, namely, the former actively intervene in the judicial activity in order to achieve press freedom while the latter rejects the interference of the media to maintain its independence, which leads to the increase of their conflict. With the advent of the Internet Age, in those public-concerned cases, some of the trials were influenced and some of the judgments were questioned by the public, which lead to a more fragile independence of judiciary and a more serious trust crisis of judiciary. With the joint efforts of network and traditional media, the common and positive expressions and attention on the judiciary have increasing influence on it, which has also been positively evaluated; on the other hand, when the judiciary actively strength protecting the rights of the media and initially accepting the supervision of the media, on the other hand, in recent years, the court actively strengthened the communication and exchanges with the press, enhanced protection ton the rights of the media, and actively accepted the supervision of the press. However, the public just appreciate the"supervision power"of the press on the hot and focus cases, but depreciate overall images of the courts and the efforts on promoting the impartial trial. This paper firstly analyzes the concept, development, theoretical foundation and features of press freedom and judicial independence, and figures out the relationship between press freedom and judicial independence from four aspects, namely value orientation, constitutional functions, bearing system and the operation mechanism, instead of simply regarding it as supervising and being supervised; secondly, the paper analyzes the conflict modes of the media and the judiciary as well as the unbalanced trend of their relationship in the Internet Age, and rationally reflects on the caused problems; lastly, it refers to some experience of developed countries and international organizations on the balance of press freedom and judicial independence to make comparison and evaluation, based on which it proposes the principles of building harmonious relationship between press freedom and judicial independence and some specific suggestions on system design in accordance with the national conditions and status quo of China, in order to make modest contribution to the construction of news legal systemBesides"Introduction"and"Conclusion", the thesis is made up of six chapters (Chapter I to Chapter VI)Chapter I briefly introduces the connotation, theoretical basis, right realization and restriction of press freedom, indicating that it is an important right which should not be abused. Firstly, the historical evolution of the thoughts of press freedom in China and western countries has been reviewed, and its connotation and right attribution has been analyzed; secondly, on the basis of the development skeleton of fundamental theory of press freedom home and abroad, the theoretical foundation for the existence of press freedom has been illustrated from many aspects; lastly further analysis of the conditions and methods of realizing press freedom has been made, and the principle of restricting press freedom has been specially proposed.Chapter II briefly discusses the concept, basic elements and historical evolution of judicial independence as well as judicial restraint, implying that it is an important value of democratic society, which should be restrained as a right. First of all, the author analyzes and comments on various viewpoints of defining the concept of judiciary, and states the connotation, characteristics, powers and functions and basic features of judicial powers; secondly, it introduces people's appeal to resorting to judicial independence system in different historical periods from theoretical exploration and system practice to demonstrate why judiciary should be independent; thirdly, basic elements have been described in terms of the independence of judiciary powers, the court and the judge; the particularity of judicial independence have been elaborated integrated with the practical conditions of China, and the institutional barriers of affecting judicial independence; lastly further discussion on the constitutional function and security function of judicial independence has been made, and ii is particularly pointed out that one concept coexisting with judicial independence is judicial restraint.Chapter III fully figures out the relationship between press freedom and judicial independence from four aspects, namely value orientation, constitutional functions, bearing system and the operation mechanism. Firstly, the author takes value orientation as an angle of view and considers that the two of them are united in terms of pursuing freedom, justice and order; secondly, from the visual angle of power restriction, it is considered that the power restriction of the two makes them united in constitutional functions and complementary in order to effectively restrain powers; thirdly, from the aspect of the relationship between the media and the court, it elaborates the compatibility of their bearing systems from the unity of accepting the leadership of the ruling party, the accordance of meeting the public's right to be informed, the complementarities of them in self-development; lastly, in terms of the practical conflicts of the media and the court, the contrariety of them in operation mechanism has been analyzed from their inherent characteristics, operational ways and various subjective and objective factors. The author believes that in the"ought to be"level, press freedom and judicial independence promote each other and are united in protecting human rights, realizing social justice and accelerating the construction of democratic laws; and that in the actual level, the media and the court are the main carriers of the two values. When different value subjects emphasize one aspect of the two values, conflicts happen. In current political environment, the two can control their conflicts with the help of present power mechanism, but the damage of their conflicts can by no means be underestimated. Both of them are important parts of democracy and legal administration, and their conflicts can only weaken their strengths and values and the whole society will also pay the price. The progress of democratic and legal construction calls for the harmonious development of the media and the judiciary, the shaping of which relies on concept progress and the institutional arrangement.Chapter IV rationally reflects on the developing trend and some problems of the relationship between the media and the judiciary in Internet Age, based on the conflict modes of them. The conflicts of the media and the judiciary are longstanding. The media actively intervene in the judiciary in order to achieve press freedom while the latter rejects the interference of the media to maintain its independence, which leads to the increase of their conflict. With the coming of the Internet Age, individuals'right to express oneself freely has been fully developed, and network has become the space for the coexistence of multiple discourse powers. With the joint efforts of network and traditional media, the common and positive expressions and attention on the judiciary have increasing influence on it; and the positive improvement on some famous cases have been praised; on the other hand, when the judiciary actively strength protecting the rights of the media and initially accepting the supervision of the media, the trust crisis of judiciary has become more and more serious as a result of failing to get the deserved comment on its efforts and overall image. This trend cannot be underestimated, and relevant systems should be built to make adjustment accordingly.Chapter V compares and analyzes the methods of UK, U.S., Germany and Japan as well as the international standards of adjusting the relationship of press freedom and judicial independence. Figuring out the changes of thoughts and systems of these countries in adjusting their relationship will be beneficial to exploring the system of coordinating and balancing the conflicts between the media and the judiciary based on our national conditions.Chapter VI discusses how to establish the harmonious relationship between press freedom and judicial independence, in accordance with the status quo and defects of them. Firstly, from the theory of social responsibility, the author proposes that media self-discipline and network ethic construction should be strengthened, and that the media should rationally deal with the judiciary; secondly, it puts forward the win-win methods based on the self perfection of the judiciary and active cooperation and communication with the media; lastly, according to the defects of current system and foreign experience as well as our practical conditions, it suggests the basic orientation, principles and specific methods of building harmonious relationship between the media and the judiciary, to realize a win-win situation.