Critérios para a delimitação da proteção jurídica da imagem dos agentes políticos/servidores públicos em face da liberdade de expressão/imprensa: Reflexão à luz do caso New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)

Abstract

Through exploratory qualitative research, monographic procedure, inductive approach, the general objective is to analyze the ratio decidendi in the preceding New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 US 254 (1964), with the aim of solving the problem about which criteria should be used in solving the real antinomy between the personality rights of a political agent or public servant on the one hand and freedom of expression / press on the other. With a focus on this research problem, it was assumed that due to the constitutional similarity between the compared systems, it would be possible to apply, in Brazilian law, the legal rules adopted by the American Supreme Court. As a result, based on the sources adopted, the hypothesis initially adopted can be confirmed, as it was found that the criteria used by the American Supreme Court in this paradigmatic precedent are compatible with the Brazilian constitutional system and offer an adequate criterion for the solution of this antinomy, since at the same time they guarantee the right to participation democracy through access to information as a rule, establish exceptions through the doctrine of the actual malice that is shown to balance the interests at stake, preventing the dissemination of information known to be false, or whose verification of veracity has been neglected by the journalist / broadcaster; as well as that defamatory information that relates to the strictly personal / intimate sphere of the public person’s life, since these cannot be considered covered by the “public interest”.