Research On The Defenses Of Defamation Of Public Officials

In the judicial practice of defamation cases,some citizens have made negative or critical remarks against public officials,and the public officials have initiated private criminal prosecutions,and then investigated the criminal responsibility of the perpetrators.If the nature of the case is serious,the procuratorate will intervene in such a case and file a lawsuit.Quite a few citizens have been held criminally liable for their speech.Historically,in ancient times,in order to maintain the authority of the ruling class,defamation of public officials was not permitted by law.This historical tradition still plays an influential role in the life of society.In addition,there are also problems in the design of criminal law provisions on the crime of defamation,which are manifested as follows: in terms of defamation legislation,there are general provisions on the object of conduct,ambiguity in the semantics of the fallback clause,and unclear boundaries between criminal defamation and reputation infringement;In the judicial aspect,problems such as arbitrary judicial application,expanded judicial interpretations,and constraints on judicial organs in handling cases.The existence of these problems tilts the balance in favor of the right to honor of public officials,and the public authorities have a strong intention to crack down on defamation of public officials.As a result,there is a tendency to expand the issue of speech crimes,and there is a danger of infringing on and compressing the space for freedom of expression.Reasonably defining the boundaries of freedom of expression or the right to reputation has a positive effect on promoting the normal development of society.This paper adopts the three-level crime composition theory to judge the constituent elements of defamation of public officials,and the judgment of responsibility is beyond the scope of this article.When citizens or the media publish "critical remarks" about public officials,the first judgment is made to determine the compliance of the constituent elements,and then the judgment of illegality.Since compliance with the constituent elements is a type of illegal act,if the speech act meets the criminal requirements of the crime of criminal defamation,the speech act has formal illegality;Otherwise,it does not have the conformity of the constituent elements and has no formal illegality.In the stage of judgment of illegality,this stage is the substantive judgment and value judgment of illegality,and the main judgment is whether there is a reason for obstruction.If there is a cause of obstruction,the defamation of a public official is not substantially illegal and therefore does not constitute a criminal defamation offence.