In an interview with “Hari TV” channel, President’s Counsel Jagath Wickramanayake stated that the journalists who shoot videos of the public without their permission could face legal repercussions for doing so, for breach of right to privacy, criminal trespass and defamation.
“There’s no way that journalists can trespass into the homes of ordinary people to video-shoot them, without their permission. Although it is completely fine for the Public Health Inspector (PHI) to visit a suspected Covid-19 patient and inquire about it from the residents, journalists will have to face repercussions under criminal and civil law if they video-shoot the public without their permission,” he said.
The interview took place in light of World Press Freedom day which falls annually on the 03rd of May.
Mr. Wickramanayake went on to state that it is sad that the public see the media as an enemy nowadays due to their own actions and also emphasized that the frequencies that have been given to electronic media are public property, which was a fact established by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. “It is important that the media houses get together and impose self-regulations in order to abide by the law and media ethics,” he further said.
When asked about character assassinations on social media, the renowned lawyer emphasized that it is his opinion that there certainly needs to be a better control mechanism over it, but not at the expense of government imposed regulations which would unnecessarily restrict free media. He also noted that if the current situation does not get a reasonable solution at the earliest, things will get very nasty in the very near future.