Press intervention

Tadeusz Kononiuk

Mediamorphotic processes taking place in Poland in recent years have resulted in the remarkably incrased interest in various aspects of implementation of human laws and basic freedoms in our country. Press and journalistic legal actions in defence of citizens’ rights are important material guarantees of both human rights and freedoms in all legal democracies. Special role in this respect is being played by one of the oldest among those rights – i.e. the subsidiary right for petition and complaint of the press on behalf of those unable to find suitable relief and justice by themselves in their troublesome situations and problems. Therefore such right has been given to the press and journalists by the suitable stipulations of the administrative procedure code as the public means of social communication. The scope and range of such subsidiary (intermediary) right granted to the press and journalists is extremely wide as the petitions and complaints made in favour of and on behalf of citizens asking for help and legal representation can concern practically all matters of their public and private lives. The important aim of calling for judgement and reaction of the public opinion in press publications of this kind is correction and elimination of various patologies and defaults of social life and institutions.

KEYWORDS

right to complaint, request, commenting and criticism, press intervention, public institutions, social justice, priority of the recipient's interest