AUDIATUR ET ALTERA PARS IN POLISH PRESS LAW. DOCTRINAL ISSUES AND ANALYSIS OF THE SUBJECTIVE ASPECT OF THE RULE (PART 1)

The rule of ‘hearing all parties’ (audiatur et altera parsin Latin) is one of the most important elements of the principle of special care and journalistic integrity, as expressed in Art. 12 sec. 1(1) of the Press Law of 26 January 1984 (Journal of Laws 2018.1914, i.e.). This rule can be considered in various complementary aspects, from which it is possible to derive a number of directives for journalists, editors and publishers, guiding their work and setting high professional standards, both towards people described in the press and media recipients or – most broadly – society. The article discusses the essence of the rule of audiatur et altera pars, its axionormative assumptions and relations to the meta-principle, which is the imperative of special care and journalistic reliability. The purpose of the article shall also be to discuss the subjective aspect of the ‘hear all parties’ rule, which refers to the journalist’s obligation to address all the protagonists of the publication prior to publication in order to obtain information and positions for use in the press material. This article is the first part of a consideration on the audiatur et altera pars rule, which will be continued in the next issue of this journal, inter alia to discuss the remaining aspects of the ‘hearing of all parties’ principle, i.e. the substantive, procedural/organisational and temporal aspects.