A Discussion About Restrictive Protection Of Public Officials’ Reputation By The Provisions Of Libel

In recent years, there are a series of highly controversial libelcases happening in public view, for example, Pengshui Poetry case inChongqing, Wu Baoquan case in Inner Mongolia, Wang Shuai case in Henanand Wang Peng case in Ningxia. These suspected of libel cases have commonfeatures that the objects are all public officers or government. In thesecases, the perpetrators who made speech to public officers or governmentwere all held criminally responsible by public prosecution. Most of thesecases were not identified as libel. This shows that there are some mistakesin the process of Identified libel in the current judicial practice thatnot only violates the citizens’ freedom of speech, but also is a violationof personal rights. The author of this paper proposes and analysis of thisproblems, drawing a conclusion that we should establish restrictions toprotect the reputation of public officers.There are four parts in this paper. In the first part, the authorsummarizes the common feature of a number of libel cases in China in recent years, drawing a conclusion that the rights of reputation of publicofficials are protected overly so that both citizens’ rights to freedomof expression and other fundamental rights are infringed. The authorsbelieve that we should clear the applicable standards of the provisionsof libel and establish restrictions to protect the reputation of publicofficers.In the second part, the author discusses the restrictive of publicofficials’ reputation from the legislative significance of libel.Combining the protected content by the provisions of libel and thecharacteristics of the reputation of public officials, the authordemonstrates that there are differences between the rights of publicofficials’ reputation and the object of a libel. The right of publicofficials’ reputation should exist only when they are as general civilsubject. Public officials should not enjoy the rights of reputation thatprotected by criminal law when they are engaged in official business; evento some evaluations of private which related to public affairs, theyshould also tolerate them kindly.In the third part, the author demonstrates that there is a strictstandard of incrimination to the behavior of the libel to public officials.If one person is identified to constitute libel, he must have fabricatedand spread false facts with malicious purposes, causing serious harm atthe same time. These stringent standards of incrimination are allnecessary to Identified a libel.In the last part, the author demonstrates that it is also restrictiveabout the prosecution of identified the defamation of public officialsa libel. The content of “Serious harm to social order and nationalinterests” in the provisions of libel is neither reasonable nor necessary.We should take remedies outside the criminal prosecution to protect thereputation of public officials.