Antinomie a iluze svobody projevu

I. The freedom of speech (freedom of expression) is one of the fundamental political rights. (CF. the heading of Part II of the Carter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, hereinafter “Charter”). Its real importance is more political than legal. Historically, it has been mainly a legal protection against any kind of public censorship and a guarantee of the freedom of religion. II. The freedom of speech encompasses the freedom of opinion (including the freedom of religion, see supra). It is a freedom pro foro externo. (Not only pro foro interno.) Forum externum means of course equally a narrow domestic circle, a private party as well as the general public (urbs and orbis). It is without any doubt that it is the general public which is interesting from the point of view of the freedom of speech. It is however practically impossible to an individual to promulgate his opinions to the general public without the help of the mass media. Nobody is however obliged, and cannot be obliged, to disseminate another person’s opinions. (There is even no general right to public response.) Thus, the freedom of speech is a fundamental right, of the citizen, there is however no corresponding obligation to enable him who enjoys this right to exercise it. III. There is an inconsistence between the freedom of speech and the freedom of ownership (s. 11 of the Charter). It is true that s. 11 ss. 3 of the Charter states (similarly as s. 14 ss. 2 of the German Grundgesetz) that “Ownership obliges”. In reality it does not oblige to anything. It follows that de facto everybody is free to disseminate his opinion provided that he owns or, as the case may be, controls the mass media. IV. A part of its aforementioned active aspect, the freedom of speech (of opinion) has at the same time a passive one: nobody shall be wronged because of his opinion, i.e. because of his publicly expressed opinion (unless the law so provides). This principle means obviously not only that nobody shall be prosecuted because of his opinion. It means much more. Let us refer to section 10 of the French Declaration of the Rights Man and Citizen of 1789 which reads: “Nul ne peut etre inquiété…”, i.e. “nobody shall be put to inconvenience” because of his expressed opinion. It is true that in reality such legal protection has never existed, neither in France nor elsewhere. V. The freedom of speech (of opinion) implies tolerance to other person s opinions. In reality it cannot prevent intolerance. It implies further indifference towards the expressed opinion, as far as the decision-making of the State authorities is concerned. This indifference has a double meaning. Firstly, the indifference of the decision-making authority in relation to the person whose rights are concerned. Secondly, the political, religious, etc. indifference of the decision-making authority itself. (As far as the party-allegiance of our Administration is concerned, the contrary is true). VI. Sometimes two special questions are discussed. Namely whether there is a right to error and, as the case may be, a right to lie. The answer is decidedly negative. A scientist, a physician etc. may be wrong. Error can be a research method: the Trial and Error method. Nobody has however a special right to error. One has a right to express erroneous opinions. This is quite a different thing, though. This right follows from the general freedom of speech (of opinion). There is of course the same freedom of rebutting the erroneous assertion. Analogously, the freedom of speech implies the freedom of false speech. On the other hand there is no right to lie. (There is no duty not to lie either.) The freedom of speech does not evaluate the content of the speech. The tolerance to the speech and opinion means also the tolerance to an erroneous or false speech. (I mean the legal tolerance mentioned above, not a moral one.) This tolerance, though, does not prevent the recipient of an erroneous or false assertion to think chat he who is wrong is incompetent and he who lies is a liar.