Different legal traditions have very different approaches to the role of statutory law in relation to the media (or other aspects of national life). Countries with a civil law or socialist legal tradition tend as a matter of course to have a comprehensive statute governing the media. Common law countries tend not to, instead assuming that the media are subject to the general law of the country except in narrowly specified areas.
The variety of different systems makes it difficult to generalize about the laws in force relating to the media. The following, however, is a list of principles derived from various international standards that give some indication of what laws that permit a healthy degree of media freedom might look like:
- Anyone is free to set up a media outlet, provided that they abide by the basic business law of the country. There will be no procedure for licensing the print media. Broadcast media may be licensed by a publicly accountable regulatory body according to publicly available standards.
- Anyone is free to practice as a journalist. There will be no legally prescribed qualification or registration process.
- Defamation law will provide a civil remedy in the event of wilful harm to reputation - but this will not be a criminal offence. Politicians and other public figures will be offered less protection by defamation law than private individuals.
- "Sedition" laws will not penalize journalists or others merely on the basis of the reporting of facts or the expression of opinions. "National security" provisions will be narrowly drawn and will only apply in the case of a genuine threat to the life of the nation - not in order to protect politicians or government agencies from legitimate scrutiny.
- There will be a presumption that official information belongs to the public. It will only be protected in order to safeguard a legitimate national security interest or for a number of other closely defined reasons. Otherwise there should be mechanisms in place to ensure public access to official information.
- Journalists should not be compelled to disclose the confidential source of information, except in very narrow circumstances - in practice only when maintaining confidentiality would impede a criminal investigation and where the information is not available from any other source.
