On Special Defenses Of Defamation

The reputation is protected by the Civil Law in principle and the two judicial interpretations of the Supreme People's Court in our country. How to balance the protection of reputation and the supervision by public opinion is difficult in practice, and become a hotspot in theory.Suits about public person and defamation mounted up in recent years. The same characteristic of these suits is that the accused statements are critical. The plaintiffs charged defendants even there are no damages. Too much suits not only wasted material resources, but also brought some negative effects: the supervision by public opinion is restricted, and the mass media are keeping quiet out of fear. Thereby, many scholars appealed the enactment of Press Law or Public Opinion Supervision Law. The major idea of this paper is not on the relation of reputation and the supervision by public opinion. This paper want to protect public opinion by the function of defamation defenses, and protect deserved reputation at the same time.In some countries such as U.S. and U.K., the defamation defenses are hundreds of years old, we can use them for reference. The defamation defenses are generally classified to certain categories in international: 1.Justification, 2.Absolute privilege, 3.Qualified privilege, 4.Fair comment, 5.Right of reply, 6.Apologize. If we compare defamation defenses to the principle provisions of freedom of expression and supervision by public opinion, we can find them are intuitionistic and exercisable. So, constituting the system of defamation defenses is available and necessary. In the future, we not only need to distinguish the defenses of defamation, privacy and portrait, but also need to combine our country's fact and international general practice, so as to exert the special effect of defenses.