Protection Of The Rights Of The Accused In Media Report

Today's criminal justice activities are increasingly concerned by the news media. The news report to trial activities is not only a manifestation of freedom of expression, but also the basic way to meet the public's right to know. In addition, it also makes to be supervision of the Justice. However, as the news report of the defendants makes them to become the focus of attention, inappropriate media coverage may make public bad impressions on them, and put pressure on the courts and judges, then affect the rights of the defendants to a fair trial. Moreover, inappropriate media coverage may become the invasion of the defendants'privacy and reputation. How to ensure the right of the media, and to achieve adequate protection of the legitimate rights of defendants make to be very difficult problems. In the academic circle,the problem that inappropriate media coverage affects judiciary has got enough attention, but the rights of defendants are usually neglected. Under the situation of our country, paying attention to the rights of defendants is more meaningful, because in international society, the degree of the protection to the rights of defendants is regarded as weatherglass of the human rights protection in one country. However, in our country, we always ignore the defendants'rights for the purpose of fighting against crimes and criminals. In such a concept guidance,media often puts aside the professional requirements and report the facts objectively. Therefore, it is of more important significance to study the theme about how to protect the rights of defendants under the media report.This article is divided into four parts.The first part is the legitimacy basis of the Media's right to report criminal justice. Media's report to criminal justice is justifiable. Its legitimacy basis consists of four aspects. The first is the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not only a fundamental human right but also an important democratic political system. Most ordinary people do not have time and energy to collect, access to information and expression. It is necessary to achieve the freedom of speech by means of the news media. The second is the right to know. Citizens have the rights to be aware of state affairs, acts of government and state personnel activities, and to understand national policies, laws and regulations. Trial activities also belong to national affairs, and justice data and information are the information people need to know, then, the public have the right to know them. Media coverage is the basic way to achieve the public right to know. The third is judicial Supervision. Media's timely and accurate reports on criminal justice are conducive to open trial and avoid the "black box" of operation. The fourth are legal advocacy and education. News media's coverage of criminal justice cases can spread legal literacy among the people and improve legal awareness.The second part is the confliction between Media's right to report criminal justice and the legitimate rights of defendants. There are conflictions between media's right to report criminal justice and the legitimate rights of defendants. On one hand, media's inappropriate report may affect the rights to a fair trial of defendants. Media's inappropriate report may cause the so-called media trial of public opinion. Under the influence of passion, the judge may make judgment which is contrary to the facts, the legal and the rational. On the other hand, media's inappropriate report may affect the personalities of defendants. First, defendants have right to privacy, but media's report may leak the defendants'private information to the public. Second, although the defendants are suspected, yet hey also enjoy the reputation in other areas. The media can not damage their reputation through insult and libel. Insult means media uses insulting words or pictures in the report to defendants; libel means the news media fabricates and spreads some of the falsehoods to damage the reputation of defendants.The third part is the study of the provisions of international rules and the measures of other countries. In the international rules, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and The Madrid Principles on the Relationship between the Media and Judicial Independence made some provisions on this question. The main contents are to give full protection to media reports about defendants, at the same time, to set the exceptions to protect defendants'rights. In America, the measures taken to protect the rights of defendants to a fair trial include consummate procedures and limit speech of the judges, public procurators and lawyers about cases. Among them, procedures include strict juror screening and management system, delay trial, change trial sites and make new trial. The measures taken by America to protect the right of personalities of defendants include refusing to open defendants'privacy information and giving legal sanctions for defamation behavior. The measures taken by the United Kingdom include punishing improper media report by the contempt of court, delaying or prohibiting media coverage by the court order, giving defendants the right to appeal and keeping secret juvenile defendants'information. As the representative of civil law system, Germany and France are mainly dependent on the judge's professional quality to protect defendants'rights to a fair trial. The measures taken to protect the right of personalities of defendants include declining to provide specific information, prohibiting media coverage to specific case and keeping secret criminal record strictly.The fourth part is the measures that should be taken to protect defendants'rights. Primarily, we should fully guarantee the news media's right to report judicial cases, and its reasons are as the following. First, on the premise that give the media right full protection, setting a few exceptions to limit media's report is the international trend. Second, the country's judicial injustice and judicial corruption have been social problems, seriously influencing the public's confidence to the judicial .So media reports on the judicial activities to supervise justice have special and significant meanings. Third, that the development of network technology makes restrictions to media can not be effectively realized. In the next place, on the premise that give the media full right protection, we should adopt various measures to protect the rights of defendants. These measures include implementing the personal independence of judges, improving the quality of judges, improving the judicial process, putting limitation to the speech of judges, prosecutors and lawyers and refusing to provide private information to the media, giving the necessary legal sanctions to inappropriate report and strengthening the Media's self-regulation.