THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONTENT OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE SPANISH CONSTITUTIONAL COURT AND EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Freedom of expression is regulated in article 20 of the Spanish Constitution and article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, provisions have one common feature: the preferred position of freedom of expression. Indeed, freedom of expression has a special emphasis or privileged to be co-essential to democracy and pluralism. The European Court of Human Rights is based on this concept in three leading cases on freedom of expression. This is the Judgement of December 27, 1976 (Case Handyside v. United Kingdom), that of April 26, 1979 (Case Sunday Times v. United Kingdom), and that of July 6, 1986 (Case Lingens v. Austria). For its part, the Spanish Constitutional Court has established that freedom of expression ensures the maintenance of free public communication, without which it would be emptied of real content other rights that the Constitution and representative institutions and, moreover, would be absolutely unnatural the principle of democratic legitimacy.