Exclusion of a response to the appeal in the right to reply litigation: On the constitutionality of the one-sided appeal concept

Abstract

Serbian Law on Public Information and Media, following its predecessor, prescribes so called one-sided appeal against a judgment in a litigation over the right to respond to information-appeal is not submitted to the other party. In addition, in such litigation, revision (second instance appeal on points of law) is inadmissible. In this paper such major exception to the general rules of civil procedure is examined with regard to its constitutionality. It turns out that the concept of one-sided appeal is partially unconstitutional, in the sense of limiting the right to be heard as part of the right to a fair trial. After denying the possibility of teleological reduction, one of the two possible ways of legislative solution is proposed, and that is simply abandoning the concept of one-sidedness of the appeal.

Keywords

• right to reply
• response to the appeal
• concept of one-sided appeal
• right to be heard
• equality of arms
• equality of arms in proceedings
• right to a fair trial