Research On The Conflict Between Freedom Of Press And The Right To Privacy

All rights are limited and they are always restricted by one or a few other rights. There is a line between rights. Once one right exceeds its due limit, it will damage others; and this is the right time for a conflict. When two legitimate rights conflict with each other, any bias towards one side will do harm to the other, and vice versa. And this shows the mutuality between rights.Freedom of the press and the right to privacy, as two rights that usually conflict with each other, how to strike the balance between them thus becomes the starting point of the present study. One essential approach is to draw a reasonable line between two rights to ensure their exercise within their own proper limits. Since the connotation and denotation of the concepts must be specified beforehand, this paper intends to start from explaining the definitions of freedom of the press and the right to privacy, aiming to establish a benchmark for the delimitation of both two rights.Then the paper continues to analyze the theoretical basis and also values of both two rights. The reason is that no right can be set up if it is valueless for the human race. And the magnitude of this kind of value is just the major factor to be considered for the delimitation of both two rights. The essence for people to handle the relations between two rights is to make the balance between different values. Value analysis, therefore, is the main method and basis for the delimitation.With a basic understanding about the definitions and values of both two rights, it seems that we have got the general outline about the scope of the two rights. Thus the following part is about how to draw a clear and reasonable line. 'Value gradation model' that is used to resolve the conflict between rights is firstly criticized in this paper. It is pointed that freedom of the press and the right of privacy are equal both in values and ranks, and the only way is through case study in order to draw the line clearly and reasonably.Some principles that need to be followed are then put forward and all of them can be generally accepted in dealing with the relations between the two rights. After a specific analysis about all these principles, this paper begins to draw the line between freedom of the press and the right to privacy using case study.The last part of the paper reflects the causes of conflict between freedom of the press and the right to privacy from a philosophical perspective, and also reveals the nature of their conflict with each other at the same time. This paper indicates that the causes of their conflict are both internal and external. Both two sides need to be considered in order to resolve the conflict ultimately. Internally, it is a conflict between different interests—personal interests and the interests of the public, which implies a conflict between the natural and social attributes of human beings. In this way, in order to resolve the conflict, the relationship between the natural and social attributes of the human race must be handled properly, and the relationship between personal interests and the interests of the public should be coordinated further. The external reason for the conflict is mat the limits of both two rights are unknown. Thus a clear and reasonable line should be drawn between two rights through legislation and judicature in order to resolve the conflict externally.