New Perspectives on the Right of Rectification

Abstract

The right of rectification is a right incorporated into the Spanish legal system through Organic Law 2/1984. It is defined there as the right that every person has to rectify information diffused by any social communication medium regarding facts that refer to them, that they consider inaccurate, and whose dissemination may harm them. The jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court has understood that this is an instrumental right for the development and exercise of the fundamental right to honour and, significantly, the right to information. The transformations brought about by the digital sphere in the communicative field raise the need to adapt regulation to contemporary reality. In this way, the novelty introduced by the incorporation of a right of rectification on the Internet in 2018 is presented here. The analysis also covers the role of the 2021 Charter of Digital Rights as an element of reflection in this field. Finally, attention is given to the current Draft of the Organic Law on the Right of Rectification, assessing whether its contents can meet the challenge of making the right effective under current circumstances.