Seek New Ways To Decriminalize Defamation

When the media plays an increasingly important role of watchdog journalism in daily pressing work,reporters may annoy interviewees for the controversy by the scale of news reporting and commentary,and even defend the personal dignity,reputation,and privacy,etc.The circumstances above lead to a common question:is there a real conflict between freedom of speech especially of press with one's personality as a fundamental right of a citizen?All countries and regions have made efforts to balance the relationship between freedom of speech and the right of personality by establishing the legislature and judicatory,their improving rules and new laws with the responsibility of press now make sense.Today,some countries including Britain has canceled the criminal libel laws but to the civil laws.Although there are specific civil laws and criminal laws,much more development still need to be achieved in the way of implementation in the Mainland.Comparing with other countries and regions in Asia and even the world,Taiwan has become a typical representation of freedom of speech.As following the global trend of democratization for more than three decades,with the undergoing political changes,economic development,and calling off the press ban,Taiwan's defamation laws have become mature.Today,if people or the media have been judged guilty in libel,there is a new method provided to replace short-term free-penalty mechanism like criminal libel called as Alternative Imposition of Fine,which has greatly reduced the situation of the media and even ordinary people involved in criminalization of speech.In addition,the alternative imposition of fine can prevent the media of the chill effect so that change the possibility of "criminalization of speech".After taking a series of measures comes a proper balance between personal reputation and freedom of press or speech.Therefore,Taiwan's alternative imposition of fine does play a reference role in the development of defamation practices in the Mainland.This paper focuses on the condition of media involved in criminal libel in Taiwan,so I skimmed the official website of Taiwan Judicial Yuan and downloaded all the verdicts including libel,according to the data of over 2892 judicial documents of criminal defamation cases in Taiwan over the past 18 years,I accounted about 2600 defamation events,which includes 118 cases related to media libel.In the background of acknowledging the laws of libel and relevant judicial interpretations in Taiwan,I made effort to sum the description of Taiwan criminal defamation situation and characters.I hope this paper may provide some new knowledge for the mainland to strengthen our judicial system.