Basın Özgürlüğünün bir Sınırı Olarak Kişilik Hakkı

Abstract

Mass communication is a very precious liability of all governments that are libertian, democratic and human rights based. Press is the one of the most important means of mass communication. Press has great responsibilities like informing, supervising, criticizing, disclosing and constructing public opinion via news and declarations. In this sense, press has a “bridge” role between govenments and the society. Performing these responsibilities freely constitutes the content of “freedom of press”. Freedom of expression, that gives chance to people to declare,or not to declare, their thoughts whereever and whenever to outside world with the help of the technological developments over the past centuries, is linked to freedom of press while expanding the freedom of expression to a massive extent. Freedom of expression and declaring thoughts freely provide a basis for freedom of press. In that sense, while expanding these to a massive extent, freedom of press known as a guarantee of democracy and proctected both nationally and internationally. During the application of freedom of press, other freedoms and rights may be violated. With the 1982 Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights stated press as free but for some specific instances, same statement figures out that this freedom can be limitated. Among these limitations, violation of personal rights covers the maximal proportion. For the instances where freedom of press and personality rights involved in a skirmish, there should be a very sensitive balance. Freedom of press and personality rights have equal importance so any one of them shouldn’t be underestimated. For this reason, in cases which include a confrontation between these two rights, tangible case should be inspected and existence of required circumstances should be checked for the decision step for which right to be limitated.