Recognition of natural person as a “public person” and peculiarities of implementation of specific rights of natural persons of “public person”

Recognition of Natural Person as a “Public Person” and Peculiarities of Implementation of Specific Rights of Natural Persons of “Public Person” The specific civil rights of natural persons are essential for existence of each natural person and these rights must be guaranteed for all of them. On the other hand, some of the specific civil rights have peculiarities when they are exercised by public person. These rights will be discussed in this paper, specifically, Right to Privacy and Secrecy, Right to an Image and Right to Honour and Dignity. It is important to identify natural persons who might be recognised as public persons. The status of public person is question of evaluation. This paper will describe criteria on which natural person shall be evaluated as a public person on case by case basis. According to The European Court of Human Rights, not only politicians, public officials and public servants might be recognised as public persons. Well known to the public persons, such as athletes, businessman, artists, etc., also might be classified as public person. This position extends the interpretation of natural persons‘ recognition as a public person. It is essential to assess if the status of public person will always have equal impact on implementation of specific rights of natural person – this question will be analysed in the paper. The European Court of Human Rights has held that limits of public persons privacy are narrower and the limits of criticism are wider comparing to natural person. This provision is held by national courts of Lithuania as well. In fact, public persons should be prepared for intervention to their private lives and strong criticism. On the other hand, it does not mean that specific rights of natural person when they are exercised by public person could be limited when there is no legal reason. Public persons are more vulnerable because they are in the center of public‘s attention. This is exploited by mass media which publishes information about their private lives and uses images of them. Also, mass media is space for sharing opinion. This makes an intersection of two values of modern society – specific civil rights of natural person and freedom of expression. They are legal basis to limit each other. One of the crucial questions is to find proportionate balance of these rights and to assess publics‘ interest as a base for intervention to public persons‘ private live and strong criticism about them. This paper analyses practice of The European Court of Human Rights and national courts of Lithuania in order to assess decisions of courts - are they always establish that limits of public persons‘ private live was restricted on legal basis or the expressed criticism was not too strong and if there was proportionate balance between specific civil rigths of natural person and expression of freedom