人格權保護를 위한 言論의 責任

Abstract

The ways in which members of modern society express their opinions are evolving in diverse forms along with the rapid development in technology. It is in this context that the personal rights of members of society are being involuntarily violated by the press and so on, thus creating lively discussions regarding relevant legal measures to mitigate this. The relationship between the people’s right to know and personal privacy is shown as conflicting on the surface, however each one its own is an important constitutionally protected right. When addressing the right to know through press coverage, there is a risk of infringing on personal rights in various ways such as exposing a person’s personal information and face and making information public unintentionally. Despite this,it has become unarguable that serious concerns regarding the mission of personal rights protection and the press has been pushed aside in the real world. In other words, it has become harder to protect personal rights in the face of reality,where intense competition between press outlets is leading to sensationalist and provocative coverage. Also, competition in the media industry is increasing as the frequency news is being provided at is changing from morning and evening cycles of the past to simultaneous reporting. It is difficult to regain personal rights that have been violated by press and victims of personal rights violations require ample time to heal upon encountering economic and social trouble when returning to their lives. It is possible to minimize such personal rights violations by the press through the use of prevention mechanisms for personal rights protection, however in reality its institutionalization is hampered by problems arising from press pre-screening issues. The paper presents the main issues and problems regarding remedies of personal rights violations such as press arbitration and criminal or civil law suits and proposes a methodology for the remedy and prevention of personal rights violation by the press. The balance between freedom of speech and personal rights is based on mutual respect and measures such as arbitration and ligitation are the last resort. Thus, the first thing that is needed for the prevention of personal rights infringement is for the press to come up with procedural measures and judgement criteria for the protection of individual personal rights.