Förtalsbrottet: en utspelad straffbestämmelse eller ett värdefullt vapen för upprättelse? - En analys av försvarlighetsbedömningen vid förtalsbrottet
(2023) LAGF03 20232Department of Law
Faculty of Law
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Förtalsbrottet syftar till att skydda den enskilde från ärekränkningar och utgör således en tillåten inskränkning i den grundlagsstadgade tryck-och yttrandefriheten. I bestämmelsen har lagstiftaren uppställt en ansvarsfri-hetsregel som tar sikte på huruvida uppgiftslämnandet varit försvarligt eller ej. Som redogörelsen visar, saknas försvarlighetsbedömningar i ett flertal avgöranden där samtliga bedömts som oförsvarliga. Avsaknaden av en för-svarlighetsbedömning leder till slutsatsen att en sådan bedömning varit överflödig i dessa fall. De kan beskrivas som de “uppenbart oförsvarliga” fallen. Att det råder en avsaknad av motiveringar kring försvarligheten i dessa målen ställer sig uppsatsen delvis kritisk till.
Något som fick stort... (More) - Förtalsbrottet syftar till att skydda den enskilde från ärekränkningar och utgör således en tillåten inskränkning i den grundlagsstadgade tryck-och yttrandefriheten. I bestämmelsen har lagstiftaren uppställt en ansvarsfri-hetsregel som tar sikte på huruvida uppgiftslämnandet varit försvarligt eller ej. Som redogörelsen visar, saknas försvarlighetsbedömningar i ett flertal avgöranden där samtliga bedömts som oförsvarliga. Avsaknaden av en för-svarlighetsbedömning leder till slutsatsen att en sådan bedömning varit överflödig i dessa fall. De kan beskrivas som de “uppenbart oförsvarliga” fallen. Att det råder en avsaknad av motiveringar kring försvarligheten i dessa målen ställer sig uppsatsen delvis kritisk till.
Något som fick stort genomslag inom ramen för förtalsbrottet var Metoo-rörelsen där de utpekade sexualbrottsförövare använde förtalsbrottet som ett verktyg för att återfå upprättelse. Huruvida förtalsbrottet ger målsä-gande en möjlighet till verklig upprättelse är en fråga på vilken redogörel-sen delvis svarar nekande. Detta på grund av brottets strukturella uppbygg-nad som i flera fall utesluter möjligheten att pröva utpekandets sannings-halt, samt det processuella förfarandet som brottet innebär. Vidare visar redogörelsen att personer vars yrkesroll innefattar en ställning i det offent-liga, förväntas tåla kränkningar i väsentligt högre grad än personer utanför offentligheten. Detta anses vara en naturlig följd av en intresseavvägning där skyddet för den enskilde får ge vika för en vidsträckt yttrandefrihet. Härtill belyser uppsatsen att det förekommer situationer som inneburit att den utpekade oavsiktligt intagit en roll i det offentliga och därmed anses få tåla samma hårda granskning.
Försvarlighetsbedömningen föranleder således en komplex avvägning mel-lan två intressen där den enskilde domaren tillmäts stor frihet i sin bedöm-ning. Trots detta förefaller vägledningen kring försvarlighetsbedömningen i förarbetena mycket sparsamma. Därtill har vårt samhälle förändrats i stora drag sedan förtalsbestämmelsen tillkom i 1965 års brottsbalk. Mot bak-grund av detta syftar denna framställningen till att undersöka hur försvar-lighetsbedömningen görs i praktiken med utgångspunkt i praxis från landets sju hovrätter och utvalda avgörande från Högsta domstolen. (Less) - Abstract
- The crime of defamation (in the fifth chapter of the Swedish Penal Code) aims to protect an individual against violations that target the said individ-ual's honour, thus provides a restriction on the constitutional freedom of press and freedom of speech. In the regulation, one can be exempt from liability depending on whether the disclosure of information was justifiable or not. As this paper will show, there are a number of cases that have been considered unjustifiable, even though an assessment regarding justification has not been conducted. This paper will argue that the absence of an as-sessment concerning justification shows that the said assessment has there-fore been considered redundant by the court—which in this paper will be... (More)
- The crime of defamation (in the fifth chapter of the Swedish Penal Code) aims to protect an individual against violations that target the said individ-ual's honour, thus provides a restriction on the constitutional freedom of press and freedom of speech. In the regulation, one can be exempt from liability depending on whether the disclosure of information was justifiable or not. As this paper will show, there are a number of cases that have been considered unjustifiable, even though an assessment regarding justification has not been conducted. This paper will argue that the absence of an as-sessment concerning justification shows that the said assessment has there-fore been considered redundant by the court—which in this paper will be referred to as the "undoubtedly unjustifiable" cases. The absence of this process concerning justification will be partly criticised in this paper.
The Metoo-movement had a major impact on the use of defamation as many alleged sex offenders used defamation as a tool to seek redress. Whether the victim of defamation is able to be remedied is something that this paper will partly argue against by considering that most cases are not able to look at the truthfulness of the accusations. Furthermore, this paper will discuss the role of the public eye, as people with certain roles are ex-pected to tolerate more scrutiny to a higher degree than the people who are outside the public eye. This is considered to be a natural consequence as the right to freedom of expression must take precedence over the protection of the individual. Additionally, this paper will show that there are situations that involve a role in the public sphere for the person identified, but where the role was involuntary. Furthermore, this paper will also consider the cas-es where an individual has not only been publicly scrutinised but also been expected to tolerate this scrutiny, even when the said individual was made public involuntarily.
The assessment of justification thus considers the intricate balance that exists between the right to freedom of expression and the protection against defamation, whilst also giving the judge a considerable amount of freedom to make his or her assessment. In spite of this, there appears to be very little guidance in the history of legislation on how these assessments of justifia-bility are to be conducted. In addition, our society has undergone consider-able change whilst the current act of defamation dates back to the 1965 Criminal Code. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to examine how the as-sessment of justifiability in regard to defamation is put into practice by looking at case laws from the courts of appeal and the Supreme Court. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9143469
- author
- Gunhammar, Annie LU
- supervisor
-
- Sandra Ahrén LU
- organization
- course
- LAGF03 20232
- year
- 2023
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Straffrätt, förtal, försvarlighetsbedömning
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 9143469
- date added to LUP
- 2024-02-02 12:09:52
- date last changed
- 2024-02-02 12:09:52
@misc{9143469,
abstract = {{The crime of defamation (in the fifth chapter of the Swedish Penal Code) aims to protect an individual against violations that target the said individ-ual's honour, thus provides a restriction on the constitutional freedom of press and freedom of speech. In the regulation, one can be exempt from liability depending on whether the disclosure of information was justifiable or not. As this paper will show, there are a number of cases that have been considered unjustifiable, even though an assessment regarding justification has not been conducted. This paper will argue that the absence of an as-sessment concerning justification shows that the said assessment has there-fore been considered redundant by the court—which in this paper will be referred to as the "undoubtedly unjustifiable" cases. The absence of this process concerning justification will be partly criticised in this paper.
The Metoo-movement had a major impact on the use of defamation as many alleged sex offenders used defamation as a tool to seek redress. Whether the victim of defamation is able to be remedied is something that this paper will partly argue against by considering that most cases are not able to look at the truthfulness of the accusations. Furthermore, this paper will discuss the role of the public eye, as people with certain roles are ex-pected to tolerate more scrutiny to a higher degree than the people who are outside the public eye. This is considered to be a natural consequence as the right to freedom of expression must take precedence over the protection of the individual. Additionally, this paper will show that there are situations that involve a role in the public sphere for the person identified, but where the role was involuntary. Furthermore, this paper will also consider the cas-es where an individual has not only been publicly scrutinised but also been expected to tolerate this scrutiny, even when the said individual was made public involuntarily.
The assessment of justification thus considers the intricate balance that exists between the right to freedom of expression and the protection against defamation, whilst also giving the judge a considerable amount of freedom to make his or her assessment. In spite of this, there appears to be very little guidance in the history of legislation on how these assessments of justifia-bility are to be conducted. In addition, our society has undergone consider-able change whilst the current act of defamation dates back to the 1965 Criminal Code. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to examine how the as-sessment of justifiability in regard to defamation is put into practice by looking at case laws from the courts of appeal and the Supreme Court.}},
author = {{Gunhammar, Annie}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Förtalsbrottet: en utspelad straffbestämmelse eller ett värdefullt vapen för upprättelse? - En analys av försvarlighetsbedömningen vid förtalsbrottet}},
year = {{2023}},
}