The Balance Between The Right Of Citizens To Freedom Of Speech And The Reputation Of Public Officials

In judicial practice,the treatment of the conflict between citizens' right to freedom of speech and public officials' reputation rights is more inclined to protect citizens' right to freedom of speech and limit the reputation rights of public officials.The "actual malicious rule" established by the First Amendment to the US Constitution first proposed the concept of "constitutionalization of the burden of proof",and discussed these two rights conflicts within the framework of the Constitution.However,China's discussion of these two kinds of rights conflicts still focuses on the general theoretical research framework of rights conflicts.In practice,no specific standards have been determined to balance these two rights.Therefore,the United States is used here as a reference frame to discuss the rights of freedom of expression and reputation from the experience of balancing these two rights in the American context.This article takes "New York Times v.Salisbury Copy" and "Herocourt v.Falwell" as the research objects,discusses the application of "actual malicious rules" in these two cases,and learns how the United States balances rights Conflict,realize freedom of thought,and maintain public enthusiasm for discussion,so as to find out ideas or methods that can be used for reference and break through the dilemma of conflict of rights.From a theoretical point of view,the conflict between these two rights represents an imbalance of interests,and it is difficult to clearly define the scope of freedom of expression and the protection of reputation rights.The protection of one right represents a violation of another right.The two rights of freedom of expression and reputation are owned by citizens as important rights.How to balance the conflict between the two is a problem we should face when we further understand freedom of expression.Freedom of expression is undoubtedly important to the public.The right of reputation is also important for individual citizens.Action and speech cannot be as free.When the expression of speech promotes viciousness,then speech cannot use the First Amendment of the Constitution as a shield to demand immunity.The article focuses on the evaluation of the "actual malicious rules" throughout the case discussion,discusses the problems in the application of the rules,and combines the theory of conflict of rights to find the appropriate processing rules.When dealing with conflicts of rights,it is necessary to avoid blindly favoring certain rights or determining the priority status of certain rights.Instead,appropriate rules should be selected and applied in a specific environment according to the needs of social background and case conditions.The American academic community put forward specific rules on how to put the freedom of speech protected in the Constitution into the case in conjunction with specific cases,which is called "actual malicious rules".This article wants to explore whether the research based on case materials can be inspired by this rule,draw on the new ideas of the American context,further clarify the conflict of rights,and propose new rules that are operable.