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Tomenko proposes to interpret some concepts of the law adopted as a result of the hearings on the freedom of speech

08.04.2004   

The Parliamentary Committee in charge of the freedom of speech and information intends to conduct the joint sitting with the plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine for the interpretation of some concepts of the new law adopted as a result of the Parliamentary hearings on the freedom of speech in Ukraine. This information was communicated by Mykola Tomenko, the head of the Committee in charge of the freedom of speech and information, at the UNIAN press conference.

According to the information of the UNIAN correspondent, M. Tomenko remarked that after the approval of the law “On the introduction of changes to some laws of Ukraine as a result of the parliamentary hearings “Society, mass media, power: freedom of speech and censorship in Ukraine”” the judges came across the problem of interpreting the concepts introduced by this law, in particular, “evaluative judgment” and “socially important information”. M. Tomenko believes that the meaning of these concepts must be defined more precisely. Besides, he does not exclude the possibility that the committee will initiate the introduction of changes to this law with the aim of interpreting these concepts.

The UNIAN reference. On 3 April the Supreme Rada of Ukraine approved the Law “On the introduction of changes to some laws of Ukraine as a result of the parliamentary hearings “Society, mass media, power: freedom of speech and censorship in Ukraine””. This law introduced the changes to some legal acts connected with the questions of guaranteeing and unhampered realization of the citizens’ right for the freedom of speech.

According to this law, nobody may be brought to responsibility for expressing the evaluative judgments. The law reads that the evaluative judgments (except insult or libel) are the judgments that does not contain factual data, in particular, criticism, evaluation of actions and the statements, which may not be interpreted as ones that contain factual data taking into account the use of special turns of speech, such as hyperboles, allegories or satire. The evaluative judgments must not be refuted, and their authenticity must not be proved.

A person is released from responsibility for divulging the information with the restricted access, if a court would acknowledge that this information is socially important.

9 June 2003, UNIAN, http://unian.net/ukr/news/free/

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