Freedom of expression guaranteed by local and international laws

Kosari, a media rights jurist, stressed that freedom of expression is not even unlimited, although restrictions often even misuse such restrictions.

The Kusari in organising the EU Information and Cultural Centre, titled “Freedom of Expression and Media Rights”, stressed that freedom of expression is not only the right to speak, but much broader.

She mentioned many reasons why freedom of speech matters to people. According to her, the most important reason for freedom of expression is because it enables self - development, for each person can develop if he exercises freedom of speech.

“Freedom of expression involves freedom of thought, so each of us has the right to think absolutely what he wants, and that right is guaranteed and no one can violate it. Besides having the right to think what we want, we also have the right to obtain information. Example we have the right to know the public authorities how they do their work, we have the right to look for documents, we have the right to seek accounts from politicians, so when you see a journalist asking a politician, what should characterize him is the reason that that journalist is allowed is that he is guaranteed with freedom of expression”, Kusari said.

However, Kusari says that freedom of speech is not even unlimited. It has cited classified documents, public security, law protection and crime prevention, health protection, identity protection, and other cases, when that right can be restricted.

In her view, there are even times when such restrictions are misused to avoid giving appropriate information.

This right is not unlimited, and here often the misunderstanding begins, which often the right to freedom of expression is considered absolute right, where everyone can say whatever he wants, and that in fact from the legal perspective that we are talking about today is not true. There are times when freedom of speech can rightly be restricted, and this is done in order not to violate other rights, to become a balance of many rights. Some of the cases where freedom of expression is legally accepted include national security”, she stressed.

Kusari points out that in an ideal world, rule of law had to be identified with certain elements, such as the governance of the country with laws that are published and promoted that are a element of transparency, the validity of the same law for all, not for someone more and someone less, respect for power sharing, others.

However, it also mentions the obligations journalists have when reporting.

We can't develop, we can't rule the law, we can't have a democratic state, but this right to the media comes with responsibility, some obligations. A journalist doesn't have the right to report, but he has to do that on certain criteria. There are two obligations to journalists, it should report in confidence, not in anger, not because they don't like someone, but why they believe their reporting should be made is public interest, and the second reporting should be done based on facts”, she said.

In this discussion, there were also questions by participants in media rights juristia, the Kusari butterfly.