Research On The Right Of Reply

Right of reply entitled an individual who was involved in a media report the right to request the particular news media to report his reply on the same layout of the original news for free without due delay.News medias undertake the functions of providing information,satisfying the public's right to know,and promoting public supervision.Considering the increasing speed and widening range of media information transmission,individual's rights of personality are more likely to be invaded than before.The conflict between media's freedom of press and individual's right of personality becomes more complex and sharp,but the traditional tort law,takes damages as the core content,appears to be stretched in dealing with that.Right to reply,as a claim of the personality right,is a vital system to alleviate this conflict.The main difference between the applicable scope of right of reply stipulated by the countries was whether it's applicable to the expression of opinions.Because the opinion expression was difficult to designated in the law,and the offensive expression could be more invasive than false facts.Moreover,it's hard to distinguish expressions with facts.In order to ensure the adequacy of the personality right relief,facts and opinions should be included in the applicable scope of right of reply.In terms of the applicability of right of reply,the civil law system stated that tort liability should not be a precondition.The Anglo-American law system did have written right of reply statutes.Right of reply was usually as a defence of tort liability in national reputation tort law.In order to guarantee the comprehensiveness and timeliness of human rights relief,the application of right of reply should not be presupposition to constitute tort liability.In terms of the legal effectiveness of right of reply,some civil law countries,represented by France and Germany,believed that the exercise of the right of reply did not affect the news media to bear other liabilities.The Anglo-American law system,represented by America,held that the exercise of the right of reply should be an incomplete defense to reduce media's tort liability.This thesis argues that the exercise of right of reply should be an incomplete defense.