Constitutional Analysis Of Libel At The Angle Of Freedom Of Speech

Freedom of speech is a very important social value and character, because the atmosphere of tolerance and freedom can provide the basis for the healthy growth of personal wise and the development of a harmonious society. Therefore, freedom of expression is considered the basic human rights of citizens,and to be fixed by the constitutional law has become a usual phenomenon.But, as a provision of the common law, libel is mainly in order to safeguard the citizen's reputation, privacy and other related rights.Because of the different values between freedom of speech and the libel ,there is conflict between the two in a certain range.A series of defamation case in our country recently has made people be in doubt to the constitutionality of the existence of libel,as if libel is a tool to kill the freedom of speech.Therefore, correctly handle the relationship between the freedom of expression and the libel has a very important significance to building our socialist legal system and developing our harmonious society. As the basis of the protection and limits of the freedom of speech,the article comprehensive analysis of the constitutionality of the libel and its control by the Constitution.It is search for the way of the balance development between the freedom of expression and the libel.The article is composed of three parts mainly:Part I brought forward the problem , and introduced the basic theory and the related concept of the freedom of speech and libel,then,analysed the interest protected by freedom of speech and libel ,pointed out that the freedom of speech have great value in self-actualization,social democracy and healthy social environment,however, the value of the libel is about reputation, privacy and other related interests.In view of the confliction between the freedom of speech and the libel,the second chapter takes the limitation of the freedom of speech as the rod, carries on the analysis from two aspects: the necessity of reasonable limit to opinion market,the two level theory.Then we come to the conclusion:the existence of the libel is not in violation of the Constitution.The constitutional control of libel is discussed in chapter three .It point out that in order to deal with the relationship between the freedom of speech and the libel,we should establish the"Actual Malice Test", and some reasonable defence matters about libel,control the libel by two path. In this way,we can achieve a reasonable balance between the two.