Global Media Rights and Responsibilities
Senior 6 · General and Religious Studies
Global Media Rights and Responsibilities
Lesson 1 of 3
22 min
In 1766 the Swedish parliament passed a Freedom of the Press Act that did something new: it let any citizen read the official documents of the State. The idea behind it, pressed by the priest and politician Anders Chydenius, was simple. People who pay for a government, obey it and may be harmed by it have a right to see what it is doing. It took two centuries for the idea to spread. Today well over a hundred countries have access-to-information laws, and the United Nations tracks them under Sustainable Development Goal indicator 16.10.2.
Rwanda joined them on 8 February 2013, when Law N° 04 of 2013 relating to access to information was adopted. It begins with a sentence that changes the relationship between citizen and office: "Every person has the right of access to information in possession of a public organ and some private bodies" (Article 3).
This unit asks three questions. What is the right to know, and where does it stop? Who is responsible for what the world's media, platforms and AI systems tell us? And how do media change the cultures that receive them?
Important
Source A: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 19
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Source B: African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (1981), Article 9
"1. Every individual shall have the right to receive information. 2. Every individual shall have the right to express and disseminate his opinions within the law."
Source C: Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda of 2003 revised in 2015, Article 38
"Freedom of press, of expression and of access to information are recognised and guaranteed by the State. Freedom of expression and freedom of access to information shall not prejudice public order, good morals, the protection of the youth and children, the right of every citizen to honour and dignity and protection of personal and family privacy. Conditions for exercising and respect for these freedoms are determined by law."
Definition
Right to know (right of access to information): the right of every person to seek and receive information held by public bodies, and by private bodies doing public work, unless a law gives a specific reason to withhold it. Example: asking a district for the budget of a school-building project.
Freedom of expression: the right to hold opinions and to share information and ideas by any means, including speech, print, broadcast and the internet.
Freedom of the press: the freedom of journalists and media houses to gather, publish and comment on news without prior approval from the State.
Public organ: a body of the State, such as a ministry, district, public school or public agency.
Information officer: the person in a public or private organ whom the law makes responsible for answering requests for information.
Public interest: what benefits the public as a whole, such as health, safety or honest use of public money, as opposed to what merely interests the public, such as gossip about a celebrity.
Whistle-blower: a person who reveals wrongdoing inside an organisation to the authorities or the public.
Law N° 04 of 2013 turns the promise of Article 38 into a procedure. Figure 1 follows one request through it.
Three details matter. First, the right belongs to every person, not only journalists or citizens. Second, the request costs nothing; only copying or sending may be charged (Article 10). Third, the burden is on the holder: an organ that refuses must have a ground the law lists. Article 16 also protects a person who discloses information in the public interest, on reasonable grounds that it is accurate, after the people who should have disclosed it failed to do so.
| The right includes (Article 3) | Information may be withheld when it would (Article 4) |
|---|---|
| Inspecting activities, documents or records | Destabilise national security |
| Taking notes, extracts or copies of official documents | Impede the enforcement of law or justice |
| Taking extracts of notifications | Interfere in an individual's privacy when it is not of public interest |
| Obtaining information stored electronically or on print-outs | Violate legitimate trade secrets or other protected intellectual property |
The table shows the balance every system of free expression strikes. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), which Rwanda has ratified, puts it in one test (Article 19, paragraph 3): a restriction is lawful only if it is provided by law and necessary for the rights or reputations of others, national security, public order, or public health or morals.
Worked example 1: is the refusal lawful?
A youth group asks its district for the contract and cost of a new market. The officer replies: "District contracts are confidential."
Step 1, the right. Under Article 3 any person may request information held by a public organ. A district is a public organ, so the group has the right.
Step 2, the grounds. Article 4 lists the grounds for withholding. "Confidential" is not one of them. A market contract does not threaten national security, block justice or expose private life.
Step 3, partial release. If one part, such as a supplier's protected trade secret, did meet an Article 4 ground, the district could hold back that part and release the rest.
Conclusion. The refusal is not justified as given. The group can ask again in writing, citing Articles 3 and 4, and report a continued refusal to the Office of the Ombudsman, which monitors the law (Article 17).
Worked example 2: when the right to know meets privacy
A blogger obtains a hospital list showing which pupils at a school receive treatment for a chronic illness, and wants to publish it "because the public has a right to know".
Analysis. The health of named children is private and of no public interest; publishing it would harm them. Article 38 of the Constitution names "the protection of the youth and children" and "personal and family privacy" as limits, and Article 4 of the 2013 law allows privacy to be protected when it is not of public interest.
Conclusion. Publication is not justified. A story about whether the hospital is well supplied would be in the public interest, and could be told without naming a single child.
The media are the main way most people exercise this right. They gather information that one citizen alone could not, and they are often called the watchdog of power. That is why the next lesson turns to the duties that come with the freedom.
Tip
Right-holder, duty-bearer, limit. In any question on the right to know, name three things: who holds the right (every person), who owes the duty (the public organ and its information officer) and what limit applies (a ground listed in law, necessary and proportionate). An answer that names all three is already analytical.
Warning
"Interesting" is not "in the public interest". Many weak answers treat anything people want to read as public interest. The test is whether the public as a whole benefits, for example by learning of a danger, a crime or the misuse of public money.
Important
Discuss. Article 4 lets information be withheld when it would "destabilize national security". Who should decide what counts as national security: the organ that holds the information, the Ombudsman or a court? What could go wrong with each choice?
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: Figure 1, the table, the worked examples and the exercises.
