On Restriction And Protection For Public Figures' Right Of Privacy

Privacy of public figures is a kind of right which has important and universal value in judicial practice and needs to be restricted and protected by the existing law. With the social and economic development, it gradually becomes a new and independent right of privacy in the privacy area, follwing after the the public's increasing sense of privacy and right of privacy. Compared with the privacy of ordinary citizens, that of public figures is more specific and realistic, and can reflect the economic interests and political content more directly. So violation to or abuse of public figures'privacy are more likely to damage the public interests directly. Nowadays, with the number of invasion of privacy cases in our society increased year by year, the public are more aware of privacy, increasingly requiring the right of privacy. At the same, time, the public's various types of spying and discovering public figures's private deeds has become a part of everyday life. Privacy and other rights of public figures conflicts intensely. All these aspects require to perfect social development and progress of legal theory and practice. However, researchs on the theory of privacy in China, especially that of privacy of public figures is not sufficient, and most of the points are one-sided emphasis on the protection for privacy of public figures,but a series of problems such as how to limit, what to limit, and how torestrict, etc. are neglected, which is the judicial practice and the contradictions of social reality runs counter to the focus, resulting in a lack of theoretical basis of judicial practice guidance. As a special social group, public figures'privacy is unique, so we can neither condone the abuse of privacy of public figures, leading to someone take advantage of his possession of a large number of public resources to harm the public interests and the legitimate rights of others, nor ignore the public figures privacy protection from their normal family life, personal privacy and peace be damaged. To study the privacy of public figures is theoretically and practically significant. In short, as to the privacy of public figures, the relevant legal system should first give necessary restrictions, while such restrictions should not be unlimitedly expanded but should be appropriately protected. This paper focuses on the boundaries of restriction and protection.This paper researchs the concept and scope of public figures, the main content of privacy of public figures, the basic principles in restriction on and protection for public figures privacy, and the anysis from the perspective of civil law and civil right on the conlicts among the privacy of public figures, the public right to know, and freedom of the press, thus recommends the concept of protecting privacy of public figures.The first part discusses several basic concepts of the privacy of public figures, namely, the meaning of privacy, content of privacy, features of privacy as well as concept and classification of public figures. It proposes the necessity and standards of classifing the public figures. At the same time it claasified public figures into two categories-political and social public categories so as to diffrentiately restrict and protect thier privacy. It proposes the bottom line of privacy of public figures and takes it as the limilation of public figures'privacy. On that basis, it preliminarily argues the basic boundaries in restricting and protecting privacy of public figures.The second part introduces the basic principles and legal requirements about restriction on the protection for privacy of public figures in Anglo-American law system and Romano-Germanic. It specificly and respectively analyzes the modes of restricting and protecting privacy in laws of various foreign countries, then concludes thier significance in working as references to our country's relevant legislation and judicial.The third section summarizes the privacy of public figures to limit the protection of the basic principles, including the principle of priority of public interest, legal interest balance principle and the principle of differential treatment, combined with above categories of public figures, have focused for different specific types of public figures discussed the significance of the three principles. Under the guidance of above principles, the fourth part specificly discusses several rights thaa most easily to conflict with privacy of public figures. Also it analyzes the causes and performances of the conflict and attempts to explore an equitable way under the guidance of above principles.The fifth part, taking account of the presnet situation of the privacy of public figures in China, narrates the basic concepts in need of clearance,discusses the theory should be clear first of all some basic concepts, basic principles should be established, after which both the legislative and judicial restrictions on public figures and the protection of privacy laws system construction, and proposed legal protection of privacy of public figures recommendations:First, clearly define the concept and scope of public figures; the second is to set the scope of protection of public figures privacy related provisions; Third, strict control of public figures privacy restrictions range; Fourth, the privacy of public figures to give defence.