The Crime of Character Assassination in The Jordanian Cybercrime Law

Abstract

A person’s right to his honor and self-esteem is one of the rights associated with and arising from legal personality, regardless of his social status. With the emergence of cybercrime, it has become possible for attacks on honor, prestige and reputation to occur by those who tamper with these means, which necessitated setting controls for what is published on personal pages and websites. The Jordanian legislator was a pioneer in this regard, and this was crystallized through the enactment of the Electronic Crimes Law No. 17 of 2023. This study used the descriptive approach and the inductive analytical approach. The findings showed that this law is unique in including a text that criminalizes spreading or attributing any actions that would lead to character assassination. This means the deliberate moral liquidation of the reputation and credibility of a person, institution, organization, or social group, by making false accusations, spreading rumors, and manipulating deliberate misinformation and facts to present an untrue picture of the targeted person and isolate him socially, in a manner similar to the process of professional assassination of human life. The Jordanian legislator has increased the penalty for the perpetrator of this crime and everyone who contributed to its commission. The study showed that although the crime of electronic defamation stipulated in this law is similar to the crime of character assassination in that both of them aim to harm the reputation, dignity, and prestige of the targeted person, the special intent must be present in the crime of character assassination, which is to eliminate the targeted person morally and isolate him socially.