| المستخلص: |
The current study sought to achieve a key objective of monitoring the problems of legal regulation of criminal responsibility for crimes of e-press release in Egypt through an analytical study of Law No. 180 of 2018 on the regulation of the press, media, and supreme council for media regulation. The study was based on the analytical descriptive and inductive approach as well as the methodological comparison method. Perhaps the most prominent conclusion of this study is that, despite its recent promulgation, the law on the Regulation of the Press and Media, as it seems to us, has not paid sufficient attention to electronic journalism, especially in light of the tremendous developments in the world of information technology. We don't see the law dealing with sufficient and independent detail what refers to the nature of the electronic press in all its forms and the means of publication therein, and to indicate the controls of its practice commensurate with its different nature from other media outlets. In summary, in view of the problems revealed by the current study regarding the legal regulation of criminal liability for electronic media publication offenses, we find, from the viewpoint of researchers, that it is necessary for the Egyptian legislator to enact an independent law on electronic media with all its forms in order to be in line with the nature of the tool and to keep pace with the developments in this field. Below we present the most prominent findings of the study in light of the questions it raised. What are the problems of legal regulation of criminal liability for electronic press publishing crimes? The analysis showed a range of problems related to the legal regulation of criminal liability for electronic publishing crimes in light of Law No. 180 of 2018 on the regulation of the press, media, and supreme council for media regulation; we summarize it below: At the forefront of these problems was the ambiguity of some texts, leading to different interpretations. Some articles of the law contained many broad and unspecified words and phrases indeed that carried interpretation in their aspects. Therefore, their interpretation and explanation are left to the judicial and executive bodies on the one hand. The lack of clarity and significance, on the other hand, leads to the inability of a journalist or citizen to determine what is considered a crime and what is not, including terms such as national security and national defense requirements, violation of public order, or etiquettes, disturbing public peace and others. There is another problem related to this problem, which is the expansion in publishing prohibitions, and thus expanding the limits of criminalization and the perpetration of crimes as long as journalists demanded to abolish them through elastic phrases that can be interpreted in ways that are not in favor of journalists, to the point that reflects the intention to blockade the press and to turn the profession and journalists into writing official bulletins. A third problem revealed by the study is the expansion of the scope of responsibility (generalization of punishment), which was the focus of the legislator on what is behind the writer. The legislator was keen not only to hold the journalist accountable but went further to punish the website or media as a partner in legal accountability alongside the journalist. This is what has been called "solidarity liability," based on the assumption that the director is responsible for the criminal publishing published on the website or newspaper. This is a departure from the general rules of criminal liability, which stipulates that responsibility shall be personal only to those who actually contributed to the crime commission. The fourth problem was the lack of interest in regulating crimes of violation of intellectual property rights in relation to journalistic works. The Law on the Regulation of the Press and Media does not care about affirming the protection of intellectual property rights contained in Law 82 of 2002. The law did not contain any controls on the intellectual property rights of the journalistic work, in particular, the violation of intellectual property rights through the illegal copying of the press product and attributing to self as one of the most prominent forms of violation of intellectual property rights in the electronic environment. The fifth problem was that there was no clear distinction between the right to criticize and insult and defamation offenses. Despite the fact that, as mentioned above, the legislator established the conditions for permissible criticism and prohibited a journalist or media person from addressing the conduct of public workers, a person working in a public representative capacity or in charge of public service, however, he did not provide for the prescribed penalty in case of violation of this ban, which would put the offending journalist accountable under other general laws such as the Egyptian Penal Code. The analysis also revealed the sixth problem of the unclarity of what offences are related to incitement. Despite the fact that the Egyptian legislature, while regulating criminal responsibility for journalistic offenses in the Press and Media Regulation Act, stipulates that deprivation of liberty cannot be imposed for crimes committed through publication or publicity, however, the offenses of incitement to violence, discrimination between citizens or challenging individuals by imposing a penalty of deprivation of liberty, are excluded. However, the law did not specify what was meant by terms such as violence, discrimination, or challenging the lives of individuals and left them to the judicial authorities for interpretation and explanation. The judge may not require a journalist in these cases to compensate and apply a penalty of deprivation of liberty in accordance with the provisions of the constitution and the law in this regard. The seventh problem was to deal with blogs and social networking sites as media outlets without explicitly stating that. In this regard, the analysis revealed that the Egyptian legislator in drafting the Press and Media Regulation Law 2018 did not explicitly provide for blogs or social media sites as an information tool. However, Article 19 of the Law implicitly refers to these sites through the phrase "each personal website, personal blog or personal e-account with five thousand followers or more). The problem arises in light of a disagreement between jurists about the legal nature of these sites and blogs between being a shelter contractor or publisher in light of the technical role of these sites. The eighth and final problem is the specificity of cybercrime and the authentic evidence of cybercrime, and the consequent difficulties facing the legal regulation of electronic publishing offenses. The most notable of these difficulties are the difficulty of proving publishing offenses committed over the Internet, given the characteristics of the electronic medium itself, speed in committing and the ease of blurring and erasing their effects, and thus the inadequacy of traditional evidence in proving them. Hence begins the difficulty of searching for evidence, collecting evidence, its acceptability, if any, and its credibility in establishing the facts of the crime. What are the features of the policy adopted by the Egyptian legislator to maximize criminal responsibility for crimes of electronic press publishing? Punishment is the penalty prescribed by the legislator on those found responsible for the commission of acts, the commission of which is considered a violation or breach of legally established obligations or duties. However, the penalty shall be established to the extent that is proportionate to the offense in an attempt by the legislator to prevent the recommission of the crime, whether by the offender or any other. It should be noted here that the Egyptian Constitution — 2014 — when providing for the establishment of the Supreme Council for Regulatory Media (Article 211), the National Press Authority (Article 212), or the National Media Authority (Article 213), explicitly stated that the main objective of the establishment of such entities is the responsibility to ensure and protect freedom of the press and information as enshrined in the constitution within the framework of the basic elements of society, in addition to establishing the necessary controls and standards to ensure that the press and media adhere to the principals and ethics of the profession. This indicates that when promulgating laws regulating the practice of the profession, the legislator may not go beyond those constitutional goals and objectives. Therefore, it must be emphasized that the legislative regulation of media and journalism practice must be within the scope of constitutional controls on freedom of the press and media and the guarantee of their independence. This is based on the fact that the legislator's power to regulate rights is limited to the rules of the constitution, which indicate the boundaries of the constituency that may not be entered into in such a way as to undermine the right protected or affect its content. Each right has a constituency in which it operates and breathes only through it. It may be regulated only beyond its external borders, and if the legislator enters it, it may result in the confiscation or restriction of the right, which necessarily leads to the derogation of the freedoms and rights associated with it. From the analysis that revealed the group of problems mentioned above, it is clear that the Egyptian legislator has adopted a punitive policy that takes solidarity responsibility for violations and crimes committed by newspapers or websites. It adopts a punitive philosophy that keeps the balance of old laws and adds to them by thickening them with penalties and introducing new crimes in vague and stretchy terms. The policy also c
سعت الدراسة الراهنة إلى تحقيق هدف رئيسي يتمثل في رصد إشكاليات التنظيم القانوني للمسئولية الجنائية عن جرائم النشر الصحفي الإلكتروني في مصر من خلال دراسة تحليلية للقانون رقم 180 لسنة 2018 بشأن تنظيم الصحافة والإعلام والمجلس الأعلى لتنظيم الإعلام، واستندت هذه الدراسة إلى المنهج الوصفي التحليلي والمنهج الاستقرائي إضافة إلى أسلوب المقارنة المنهجية، ولعل النتيجة الأبرز في هذه الدراسة هي أن قانون تنظيم الصحافة والإعلام - على الرغم من حداثة صدوره - كما يبدو لنا لم يعر الاهتمام الكافي للصحافة الإلكترونية خصوصا في ظل التطورات الهائلة في عالم التكنولوجيا المعلوماتية، فلم نجد القانون يتناول بالتفصيل الكافي والمستقل ما يشير إلى طبيعة الصحافة الإلكترونية بكل أشكالها ووسائل النشر فيها وبيان ضوابط ممارستها بما يتناسب مع طبيعتها المختلفة عن الوسائل الإعلامية الأخرى، وخلاصة القول، فإنه في ضوء الإشكاليات التي كشفت عنها الدراسة الراهنة فيما يتعلق بالتنظيم القانوني للمسئولية الجنائية عن جرائم النشر الصحفي الإلكتروني، نجد أنه من الضروري - من وجهة نظر الباحثين - أن يقوم المشرع المصري بسن قانون مستقل للإعلام الإلكتروني بكافة أشكاله لكي يتماشى مع طبيعة الوسيلة ويواكب التطورات الحاصلة في هذا المجال. وفيما يلي نعرض لأبرز النتائج التي كشفت عنها الدراسة في ضوء ما أثارته من تساؤلات. ما إشكاليات التنظيم القانوني للمسئولية الجنائية عن جرائم النشر الصحفي الإلكتروني؟ أظهر التحليل مجموعة من الإشكاليات المتعلقة بالتنظيم القانوني للمسئولية الجنائية عن جرائم النشر الإلكتروني في ضوء القانون رقم 180 لسنة 2018 بشأن تنظيم الصحافة والإعلام والمجلس الأعلى لتنظيم الإعلام، نوجز ها فيما يلي: جاءت في مقدمة هذه الإشكاليات غموض بعض النصوص بما يؤدي إلى اختلاف تأويلها، حيث احتوت بعض مواد القانون على العديد من الألفاظ والعبارات الفضفاضة وغير المحددة يقينا وتحتمل التأويل في جوانبها، ومن ثم يترك تأويلها وتفسيرها إلى الأجهزة القضائية والتنفيذية من جهة، ومن جهة أخرى يؤدي عدم وضوحها ودلالتها إلى عدم قدرة الصحفي أو المواطن على تحديد ما يعتبر جريمة وما لا يعتبر جريمة، منها عبارات مثل: مقتضيات الأمن القومي والدفاع عن الوطن، ومخالفة النظام العام أو الآداب العامة، وتكدير السلم العام وغيرها، وترتبط بهذه الإشكالية إشكالية تالية وهى التوسع في محظورات النشر، وبالتالي التوسع في حدود التجريم وتكريس جرائم طالما طالب الصحفيون بإلغائها من خلال عبارات مطاطة يمكن تأويلها في غير صالح الصحفيين، إلى درجة تعكس نية لحصار الصحافة وأن تتحول المهنة والصحفيين إلى كتابة النشرات الرسمية.
|
