Freedom of expression and speech vs media trial
According to the freedom of the press, it is a democratic right for the public to be informed on the daily issues that normally affect them. Due to this freedom, media has re-embodied into public courts and it has started meddling with the court proceeding. When the media reincarnates itself into a legal proceeding, the privileges and freedom normally collide. Media utilizes the freedom of the press to decide on cases and make them look true in the eyes of the general public because media is the pillar of the news industry. The media normally uses probable information regarding the incident that comes on their hands to make their trials and proclaim it as just trial. This acts by media create tension between Medias’ right to freedom of expression and accused the right to a fair trial. The civil justice system and the media conflict on the emphasis and the priority to be placed in between free trial and free press despite the two being the main proponents of constitutional rights.
The public normally accepts and belief the information provided to them through media which is the mainstay of the news industry. According to the civil justice system, the suspect is normally entitled to a free trial and assumed to be innocent until proven guilty by the court of law. Before the suspect is proven guilty, none has permission to prejudice or prejudge the suspect’s case before the trial is completed. Despite this restriction, the media goes beyond its domain and interviews the relative or the witness of the case and prejudices the conviction of the accused even though the matter is pending in the civil justice system. Media prejudging the issue of conviction of the accused has a lot of impacts on the mind of the prosecutors, the court and the general public at large. Furthermore, the media has lately operated outside its bound and assumed the role of the civil justice system in providing verdicts to the majority of the cases.
According to me…, media has assumed the role of the civil justice system by carrying out crime investigation, partial reporting, breaking news and interfering with the police investigation. Over the past decade, some of the media-driven cases include Arushi and Jessica murder case. Besides these media-driven case, some of the scams driven by media include the commonwealth scam, 2G scam and Bofors scam. Despite the good role played by media in bringing out the government inactions to limelight and also divulging corruption in the government, the media has raised a lot of conflicts by trying to assume the role and the power of the civil justice system by making comments that are judgmental on the pendant trial.
Balancing between the assumption that the accused is innocent until proven guilty and the right of people to know what is going on has become inevitable with adverse competition to competent courts. The neck to neck competition arises when the media houses interfere with the judicial service system and become a matter of concern in the judiciary and legislature. Also, balancing between the constitutional rights of the press and the constitutional right of a fair trial to the suspect has become inevitable and the courts should, therefore, give clear and appropriate instructions when it comes to media trial. As claimed by me……, when rights of equal magnitude clash, the civil justice system should evolve and balance the base of the measure on re-calibration of the clashing rights to acquire equal space in the constitution.
Media trial and judicial proceedings
Some pieces of researches have been conducted to try and explain the effect of media trial in court proceedings and how much interference the media can cause when it interferes with the civil justice proceedings. The research conducted by me…., found out that media is a very important and powerful tool which has a lot of influence on people. Therefore, the ideology of the publisher and the editor reach masses of people and manoeuvres and incites their thoughts. Media being a strong tool of influence can easily shape and change the kind of thought to anything because of the freedom of the press guaranteed to it. Media does not have explicit expression and speech rights making the domain of the media to be huge and include the proliferation and spread of any kind of ideas. It is therefore important for the media not to over-exercise their powers since its significant powers can mislead the functioning of the civil service system.
The right of speech the media holds has been widely used to distort the facts in the majority of the cases. To counter this problem of media distorting the facts, the judicial service system must remain high and not easily provoked by the media’s right to freedom of speech and expression. The function of the judiciary should be only bound by the law and cannot work on the facts in any case whatsoever. In reality, the media have the capability to distort the facts and also committing a contempt of court by deciding the case for itself.
The press power can be further comprehended on the way in which people react and respond to the news. In most judicial cases, media has been quite powerful in developing public opinions. The role media played in the cases of Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo portrayed its strength for it to meet with the ends of justice. In both murder cases, there was an outranged protest because the people realized that justice, at some point, had been denied. These cases involved high profile people hence making the majority of the people interested and aware of the court proceeding. The media interference indeed helped in proper and rightful closure of the case. In the two cases, the media played a reactive and responsible journalism role in helping the citizen acquire their rights.