TY - JOUR AU - Gárdos-Orosz, Fruzsina AU - Nagy, Krisztina PY - 2018/12/15 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - "The Development of the Hate Speech Regulation in Hungary: from Criminal Law to Civil Law and Media Regulation" JF - Przegląd Prawniczy Uniwersytetu im. Adam Mickiewicza JA - PPUAM / AMU LR VL - 8 IS - SE - DO - 10.14746/ppuam.2018.8.01 UR - https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/ppuam/article/view/21596 SP - AB - <p><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 661.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.01976);">In the Hungarian legal system, the anti-hate speech rules of media law provide an ad</span><span style="left: 668.857px; top: 661.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif;">-</span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 684.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.989162);">ditional (administrative) proceeding for the media authority in parallel with proceedings </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 707.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.983585);">under criminal law and civil law. The media authorities, over the past twenty years, have </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 731.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.996195);">consistently set media law sanctions at a lower intervention threshold than criminal law </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 754.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.936811);">did, and in many cases, they established media law violation in cases where criminal </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 777.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.988362);">proceedings for incitement against a community were not initiated or ended in acquittal. </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 801.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.02532);">The fundamental aim of media law regulation is to shape media content and the edit</span><span style="left: 668.857px; top: 801.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif;">-</span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 824.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.01938);">ing practices of media players with a view to ensure respect for human dignity, and to </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 847.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.972153);">prevent media from becoming an ‘amplifier’ of hateful communications. In the first four</span><span style="left: 668.857px; top: 847.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif;">-</span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 871.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.952543);">teen years of the Hungarian media regulation, the scope of interpretation concerning </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 894.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.0136);">anti-hate speech media law restrictions developed gradually. The authority reacted not </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 917.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.939131);">only to individual cases, and individual communications, but also carried out targeted </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 941.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.02439);">investigations in cases that can be described as a phenomenon in the media coverage. </span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 964.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.994166);">Besides reviewing news and information programmes, it also acted against hateful con</span><span style="left: 668.857px; top: 964.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif;">-</span><span style="left: 94.4882px; top: 987.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.01577);">tents of the entertainment programmes. The new media regulation, which entered into</span> <span style="left: 118.11px; top: 101.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.01223);">force in 2011, partially amended the content of the former anti-hate speech regulation: </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 124.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.981912);">in addition to the provisions of “incitement to hatred”, the former category of “offending </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 147.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.971586);">or prejudiced content” was replaced by the prohibition of “exclusion”. The practice of the </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 171.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.985518);">media authority has not changed as regards the assessment of the media law standard, as </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 194.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.00921);">the authority has continued to apply it differently from the criminal law standard, con</span><span style="left: 692.479px; top: 194.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif;">-</span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 217.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.956519);">sidering it as a lower intervention threshold. However, in comparison with pre-2010 </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 241.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.979401);">practice, the authority initiated considerably fewer proceedings and its approach in terms </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 264.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.997502);">of law enforcement became less characterised by adjudicating problems that can be de</span><span style="left: 692.479px; top: 264.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif;">-</span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 287.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.981936);">scribed as phenomenon in the media coverage, no targeted proceedings of this kind were </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 311.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.987951);">initiated. Its practice can be characterised by a couple of high profile cases with extreme </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 334.455px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(1.00148);">sanctions, which attract great attention. These cases are important as they designate the </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 357.789px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.97981);">boundaries of public communications, but in this way, media law measures are not really </span><span style="left: 118.11px; top: 381.122px; font-size: 16.6667px; font-family: serif; transform: scaleX(0.989628);">suitable for making any substantial changes to the characteristics of the media coverage.</span></p> ER -