Right to information (press law)

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The right to information in press law assures journalists that authorities will provide information on questions asked.

German press laws

The German press laws provide - to varying degrees - a right of the press to official information. The wording of the Baden-Württemberg law is an example :

§ 4 Right of the press to be informed.

(1) The authorities are obliged to provide the representatives of the press with the information required to fulfill their public task.

(2) Information can be refused if

1. as a result, the proper implementation of pending proceedings could be thwarted, made more difficult, delayed or endangered or, 2. regulations on secrecy would conflict or 3. an overriding public or private interest worthy of protection would be violated or 4. its scope exceeds what is reasonable.

(3) Orders that generally prohibit an authority from providing information to the press are not permitted.

(4) The publisher of a newspaper or magazine can demand from the authorities that their official notices are forwarded to him for use no later than his competitors.

With reference to the Lower Saxony regulation, the Federal Court of Justice stated in 2005 for the purpose of these regulations:

According to this regulation, authorities are obliged to provide the representatives of the press, which (also) may include publishers and editors, with the information required for the performance of their public duties. This right to information is intended to enable the press to carry out its task within the framework of the democratic formation of opinions and will by receiving comprehensive and truthful information about events of public interest and thereby being put in a position to inform the public accordingly. In this way, the citizen can receive accurate and comprehensive information about actual processes and circumstances, grievances, opinions and dangers that would otherwise remain hidden to him, but which can be of importance for a balanced assessment of the questions that are essential for his opinion. Only this overview of facts and opinions, intentions and declarations, which is necessary for the most unadulterated knowledge possible, enables the formation of one's own will and thus participation in the democratic decision-making process in general. The provision of § 4 NdsPresseG therefore has close references not only to the freedom of the press in Article 5 (1) sentence 2 GG , but also to the freedom of information in Article 5 (1) sentence 1 of the Basic Law and to Article 20 (2) sentence 1 of the Basic Law on. The interpretation of Art. 4 Para. 1 NdsPresseG and in particular the principles for determining who is obliged to provide information in a specific case must be based on this.

No fees may be charged for the information.

Transparency obligation of the judiciary

The transparency obligation of the judiciary was expanded under the aspect of Art. 5 I 2 GG and specified by the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court . This case law can be summarized in the following six guiding principles:

1. In the case of an urgent decision on a right to information under press law, the fundamental rights dimension of freedom of the press must always be observed. This also applies to information obligations of public authorities, including the courts .

2. The bodies required to provide information have - also taking into account Art. 5 I 2 GG - a margin of discretion in the question of the type and scope of the information. When determining the specific scope of the right to information in individual cases, the conflicting interests must be weighed up. The then relevant public interest in information is to be determined based on the subject of the request for information and thus the intended reporting . There is basically no entitlement to inspect official files.

3. For information about court decisions , the special feature is that the rule of law, including the obligation to grant justice , the democratic rule and the principle of the separation of powers generally result in a legal obligation to publish court decisions worthy of publication.

4. The obligation to publish in court decisions does not only extend to legally binding decisions, but can take effect even before legal decisions . It refers to the decisions as such in their official wording. This corresponds to a media representatives' right to information under press law .

5. Access to judicial decisions is not unlimited. For example, decisions regarding personal information and circumstances must usually be anonymized. The media also have to observe increased duties of care in accordance with the principles of suspicion reporting and the rehabilitation of offenders .

6.If the request of the press to announce a criminal judgment concerns a public figure and if it concerns criminal allegations that are in the public interest due to the protected legal interests, the coveted decision can at best be kept completely under lock and key, if specific Indications of the risk of frustration, aggravation, delay or endangerment of the proper implementation of criminal proceedings in the sense of the state press laws immediately and urgently suggest.

State Treaty on Media Services

According to Section 15 of the State Treaty on Media Services, there was also an obligation to provide information for editorially designed Internet offers. Now this claim is standardized in Section 55 (3) in conjunction with Section 9a of the State Broadcasting Treaty.

Further information and inspection rights of journalists with regard to official information

Information or inspection rights that exist under other regulations (e.g. due to the freedom of information laws , the environmental information law or the archive law ) are independent of the right to information under press law.

Web links

Judgments

Others

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Löffler / Wenzel, Presserecht, 4th edition 1997; § 4 LPresseG Rn. 42, 43; Soehring, Pressrecht, 3rd edition 2000 Rn. 4.10
  2. ↑ cf. Administrative Court of the Saarland , AfP 1997, 837, 839; OVG of Saarland , AfP 1998, 426, 427.
  3. ↑ cf. BVerfGE 20, 162 , 174 f; BVerfGE 83, 238 , 295 f .; BVerfGE 97, 228 , 257 f.
  4. ^ BGH, judgment of February 10, 2005 , Az. III ZR 294/04, full text.
  5. ↑ Administrative Court Arnsberg - press release ( Memento from January 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  6. ^ Order of the Federal Constitutional Court of September 14, 2015, 1 BvR 857/15, NJW 2015, 3708 with comment by Stefan Brink and Michael Vogel
  7. ↑ BVerfG, 1 BvR 857/15, NJW 2015, 3708
  8. ^ Administrative Court of Düsseldorf, judgment of June 26, 1999 ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Az. 1 L 809/98. The regulation is considered unconstitutional by one voice in the literature: Dissertation by Bonin (PDF; 133 kB).