číslo 1/2013 - Paneurópska vysoká škola

Aktuálne/Current Landscape 105
reporting or commentary was truthful and fact-based or not; it does not distinguish between news and
views. Notwithstanding, it has to involve reputation, dignity, or privacy of the subject. The correction is
reserved for cases when a reporting needs a factual correction. Right of Supplementary Information is
reserved for people whose identity was released during a proceeding in front of a state legal body and
reported via media. If a periodical or agency news services contains a statement about a person that is
involved in proceedings before public authority and the person can be identified from the reporting, the
person has the right to demand supplementary information about a final result of the proceedings which
has to be published.
Almost a year after, in 2009, it could be concluded that the criticism and concerns materialized only
partially and that many of the institutes are actually part of EU countries’ legislation. However, the loose formulation
of the reply right and the case that it can be used to react to actual facts and views as well (not only
for false information etc.) indeed opens space for misuse and it can contradict the free speech. On the other
hand, as of 2009, there was no evidence of wide-spread misuse of the new institutes.
The empirical analysis of the use of the Right of Reply and the Right of Correction within three major
dailies showed these interesting results. Among them were:
a) the concern that the newspapers will be flooded with published requests for a reply and correction
did not materialize, as the publishers refused to publish a vast majority of them because of formal
mistakes;
b) however, all the newspapers reported increased use for the correction institute in comparison with
other time periods and the use of reply institute was widespread as well;
c) the three analyzed newspapers (SME, Pravda, Hospodárske noviny) did not record requests from
common people; however; the government had argued that the law is mostly for them; and reply or
correction was requested mostly by politicians, administration and official authorities, local governments,
law firms, interest groups and commercial businesses;
The Slovak Syndicate of Journalists re-iterated flaws in the Press law a year after its existence. „Many of
the problems are still hidden under cover and that does not mean that they not exist. They can surface any
time and explode and thus show the deformed media environment. Deformed by the fact that individual participants
in the mass communication process (journalist, publisher, provider of information and the recipient
journalistic product) are thanks to this law unbalanced“ (SSN, 2009).
I had the privilege to co-work within the Expert group that was in September-November of 2010 preparing
updated version of the 2008 Press Law for the Ministry of Culture. The new Act has reached the government
and parliament early 2011. The draft proposal excluded the mandatory provision for periodical press to publish
every year announcement on the ownership structure because the ownership structure is already publicly
available at the official Registry of publications. It revoked fines up to 4980 Euros for refusing to publish reply,
correction or supplementary information. Court of Law will have the power to set the fine. Print media can
publish corrections in special section. The most important change is about the most controversial part of the
law. In updated law, the Right of Reply cannot be used by public officials defined by Constitution when they
want to use it within their „constitutional“ positions. However they could still use the Reply right as citizens.
Right of Reply can be used only for untruthful, not-complete or truth-distorting information that touches the
GMJ Book.indb 105 21.1.2013 9:44