Right Of Reputation And Public Supervision

Since the official affirmation of the Civil General Rules in 1986, high importance has been paid to the protection of reputation. In order to address various issues arising from the legal practice, The Supreme Court has ever since issued series of judicature interpretations and opinions. Civilians and legal persons, meanwhile, are also increasingly aware of their legal rights and able to stand up and safeguard such rights when their reputation is being aggrieved. Reputation infringement (or defamation) cases have ranked as one of the most important category of civil cases dealt with by the courts. A significant quantity of individuals and media has been sued for defamation in the course of exercising their rights of public supervision. Due to the cases that are so significant in sheer quantity and common in the day-to-day life where protection of reputation and public supervision clashes, it is of practical significance in researching this area. This article seeks to explore the conflicts between reputation protection and public supervision as well as ways toharmonize them.As an important right in safeguarding personal integrity, Right of Reputation is assured under the China Civil Laws, which is essentially a right from Private Law, while Right of Public Supervision is accorded by the Constitution and it comes from Public Law. Right of Reputation and Right of Public Supervision are both the products of modern society and are important symbols of modern civilization. They are essential mechanisms in maintaining the stability and harmony of the modern society. Therefore both need to be legally protected. However, there are conflicts between the two rights. This is inevitable. The question is how to harmonize these two, which is the concern of many countries. Availing of comparative analysis and case study, this article has elaborated with three sections on the conflicts between the Right of Reputation and the Right of Public Supervision and the ways to bridge the two sides. The first section sets out the significance of Protection of Reputation, the definition of reputation infringement as well as various forms of Reputation Infringement. The second section analyzes the concept, features, social significance and application of Pubiic Opinion Supervision. The conflicts between Protection of Reputation and Public Supervision are also explored in terms of the behaviors and root causes. The last section discusses the proposed principles to be utilized by our country in addressing the conflicts as well as several scenarios of conflicts. This section also touched the principals applied by other countries in harmonizing the conflicts.To summarize, Right of Reputation and Right of Public Supervision both need protection from the law, but there are conflicts between the two. The conflicts are essentially arising from the difference between Private Right and Public Right. When they are clashing with each other, a balance shall be weighed between them, but not to simply say which to protect and which to reject or restrict. We may adopt the principle in weighing and comparing the interests represented by both sides and subsequently decide the priorities. For the reports or criticism on people or issues that are of public interest, the decision shall be tilted toward the Public Supervision when the conflicts arise between Right of Reputation and Public Supervision. In other words, the Protection of Reputation needs to be restricted under certain circumstances such as for public figures and government agencies. Should the facts stand the publishers should not be judged to infringe other people's rights of reputation as long as they are really expressing their own opinions and are not disparaging intentionally irrespective of the wording being extreme on some occasions.