Unit 7: Media Crime
7.1 Defamation, Libel and Slander
The defamation (the reputation’s crime (and tort (the double-life (the Muluki Criminal Code 2074’s criminal face + the tort’s civil face (the LAW5505-U2 companion))))): the definition’s elements (the imputation (the reputation-lowering statement (the right-thinking-society test)); the identification (the victim’s referenceability); the publication (the third-party’s communication (the media’s element))). The libel-and-slander (the classic division): the libel (the permanent form (the writing-and-image (the print-and-post world))); the slander (the transient form (the spoken (the broadcast’s classification lore)); the division’s digital blurring (the online’s permanence (the everything-libel era)).
The criminal-and-civil balance (the exam’s critical core): the criminalisation’s debate (the chilling-effect (the journalist’s-jail fear) vs the serious-harm’s answer (the malicious-lies’ punishment)); the decriminalisation’s international trend (the civil-remedy’s preference (the ICCPR-19’s interpretation faces)).
The defences (the exam’s list): the truth (the justification (the honest-note: the truth’s sufficiency (the public-benefit-condition debate (the common-law’s variants)))); the fair comment (the opinion’s protection (the public-interest’s subject (the honest-opinion’s test (the fact-opinion divide)))); the privilege (the absolute (the parliamentary (U2.6) and the judicial (the fair-report (U4))); the qualified (the public-interest-duties (the press-conference-and-the-report privilege))); the innocent-dissemination (the distributor’s defence (the platform’s face)); the apology-and-correction (the mitigation (the offer-of-amends’ faces)).
The prescribed defamation-era cases (cited verbatim; honest notes): Ratna Kumari Shrestha v. Kantipur Publications; Thir Prasad Pokhrel v. Bimarsha Saptahik (NKP 2049 B.S., No 8, p. 770); Rajan Adhikari v. Sakuntala Thapa/Nihita Biswas; Mihir Kumar Thakur v. Bhesh Bahadur Badal — the media-defamation cluster (read the decisions for the precise facts-and-holdings (the last three without detailed citations in the syllabus)).
7.2 Obscenity and Indecency
**The obscenity (the Criminal Code’s faces (the obscene-publication offences (the sale-and-display bans (the young-protection’s rationale)))): the standards’ tests (the comparative lore (the Hicklin’s corruption-of-the-young face → the community-standards’ modern tests (the redeeming-value’s consideration))); the indecency’s lesser face (the broadcast’s time-of-day faces (the watershed’s world (the children’s protection))); the regulation’s applications (the film-certification (U3.4); the advertisement’s bans (the Advertisement Act’s faces)); the digital’s challenge (the internet-pornography’s regulation (the child-pornography’s absolute bar (the ET Act-and-Children’s faces (the LAW5705-U-depth companion))); the obscenity-vs-art’s line (the literature-and-cinema’s defence (the certification’s resolution))).
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