Table Of Contentfree expression and democracy
Free Expression and Democracy takes on the assumption that limits on free
expression will lead to authoritarianism or at least a weakening of democracy.
Thathypothesisistestedbyanexaminationofissuesinvolvingexpressionandtheir
treatment in countries included on The Economist’s list of fully functioning
democracies. Generally speaking, other countries allow prohibitions on hate
speech,limitsonthird-partyspendingonelections,andtheprotectionofchildren
from media influences seen as harmful. Many ban Holocaust denial and the
desecrationofnationalsymbols.Yet,theseothercountriesallremaindemocratic
and most of those considered rank more highly than the United States on the
democracyindex.Thebookarguesthatwhiletheremaybeotherculturalvalues
that call for more expansive protection of expression, that protection need not
reach the level present in the United States in order to protect the democratic
natureofacountry.
KevinW.SaundersholdshisPh.D.fromtheUniversityofMiamiandJ.D.from
the University of Michigan. He clerked at the US Court of Appeals for the DC
Circuit for Judge Kenneth Starr. He taught at the Universities of Arkansas and
Oklahoma, and as visiting James Madison Chair at Drake University, before
moving to Michigan State University, where he holds the Charles Clarke Chair
in Constitutional Law. He is the author of three earlier books: Violence as
Obscenity (1996), Saving Our Children from the First Amendment (2006), and
Degradation:WhattheHistoryofObscenityTellsUsaboutHateSpeech(2011).
Free Expression and Democracy
a comparative analysis
KEVIN W. SAUNDERS
Michigan State University
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Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107171978
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©KevinW.Saunders2017
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To my wife, Mary E. Scott, and the next generation,
our daughter, MollyJ.Saunders-Scott,and son-in-law,
DavidM.K. Knapp.
Contents
Acknowledgments page ix
1 TheProtection of Free Expression in a Democracy 1
2 Varieties of Expression 22
3 Incitement of Crime 53
4 Hate Speech 73
5 Holocaust Denialand OtherFalse Assertions of Fact 99
6 Political Party Bans 118
7 Political Campaign Limitations 146
8 TheDesecration of NationalSymbols and Lèse Majesté 173
9 Defamation 201
10 Attackson Personal Honor 235
11 Obscenity and Child Pornography 254
12 Children and Expression 283
13 Criminal Trials and Freedom of the Press 308
14 Government Secrecy 336
15 A Matterof Choices 367
Index 371
vii
Acknowledgments
Thereareanumberofprofessionalcolleagueswhoareduethanksforavariety
of contributions, from providing citations to case law, to helping me under-
standcasesnotavailableinEnglishorevencasesthatareavailableinEnglish,
toreadingandcommentingonsectionsofthemanuscript.TheyincludeEric
Barendt, University College London; Bjørnar Borvik, University of Bergen;
LuisGrau,UniversidadCarlosIIIdeMadrid;KojiHigashikawa,Universityof
Kanazawa; and Russell Weaver, University of Louisville. More generally,
those who attended several of the annual sessions of the Free Expression
Discussion Forum provided valuable feedback to my contributions to the
forum, and I learned a great deal from their contributions. Three unnamed
referees for Cambridge University Press also made valuable suggestions.
I have also learned from my students in courses on comparative free
expression.Seeingandunderstandingthediffering reactionsonissuesoffree
speech provided insights on cultural and political differences. In addition to
my students at Michigan State University, I would like to thank participating
students from courses at the University of Białystok in Poland, Vytautas
Magnus University in Lithuania, and Yeditepe University in Turkey, and the
faculties of those universities for the opportunities toteach there.
Valuablehelponresearchandcitecheckingwasprovidedbythelibrarians
and student assistants at Michigan State University's John F. Schaefer Law
Library. Thanks also to those at Cambridge University Press involved in the
production of the volume. The financial support of the Michigan State
University College of Law, in the form of summer research grants and a
sabbatical, was also appreciated.
Lastly, some of the material covered here received earlier treatments in
other works. The material in Chapter 12 on children and expression follows
themes similar to those originally expressed in Kevin W. Saunders,
A Comparative Look at Children and Free Expression, 22 Transnat’l L. &
ix
