Defamation
- The Constitutional Right, Derived, for a Good Name
- The constitutional right to a good name is not expressly enumerated in any of the Basic Laws. It is difficult to trace the "historical" circumstances that led to this, but there is no evidence of the Knesset's intention to leave this important aspect of individual rights outside the umbrella of constitutional recognition. What was deeply rooted in the case law years before the creation of the Constitutional Bill of Rights was not uprooted by the authors of these pieces of legislation. This insight and the essence of the right to a good name led to one obvious conclusion: the right should be seen as derived from the broad constitutional idea of recognition of a person's right to dignity.
The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty further states:
| "2. Safeguarding life, body and dignity | No harm is done to the life, body, or dignity of a person as a human being." |
The case law, which determined the scope of the right to human dignity according to an "intermediate model", which is neither narrow nor overly broad (High Court of Justice 6427/02 The Movement for Quality Government in Israel v. The Israeli Knesset, IsrSC 61(1) 649, 682 (2006)), enumerated the right to a good name with its derivatives. Lightning called the right to a good name one of the "daughters" of the right to human dignity (Aharon Barak Human Dignity - The Constitutional Right and its Daughters 615 (2014)). "Everyone will agree," he took The Honorable Judge Mishael Cheshin This position underscores a slight gender change, "because human dignity extends itself in the good name of man. Adam's name is his firstborn son [of his glory]."High Court of Justice 6126/94 Szenes v. Broadcasting Authority, IsrSC 35(3) 817, 866 (1999)).
- Protection of the Right to a Good Name
- As in the matter of infringement of privacy, the sub-constitutional level in our law sets aside a specific piece of legislation, which is one of the means in the law for the protection of the right to a good name. Prohibition of Defamation Law, 5725-1965 establishes the foundations of the tort of libel and the conditions for the imposition of liability in torts in this tort. The first section The law develops and establishes, in four alternatives, what constitutes something that involves defamation:
| "1. What is defamation? | Defamation is something whose publication is liable to: | |
| (1) | to humiliate a person in the eyes of others or to make him a target of hatred, contempt, or ridicule on their part; | |
| (2) | degrading a person for actions, behavior, or attributes attributed to him; | |
| (3) | harm a person in his office, whether a public office or any other position, in his business, occupation or profession; | |
| (4) | to degrade a person because of his race, origin, religion, place of residence, age, sex, sexual orientation or disability." | |