2 condition of those who practice journalism as a profession (communications professionals upon whom the recipients of the message to a large extent rely for their information.). The implication here is that freedom of expression has two aspects: on the one hand, it is a fundamental right, connected to the other basic rights and plays a role in social life as a whole. But freedom of expression can also be viewed from a “functional” perspective, having to do with the service that it provides and that enables the existence, survival, exercise, development and guarantee of other rights and freedoms. 5. Other rights suffer, weaken or disappear when freedom of expression is eroded. The protection of life and liberty, preservation of integrity of person, respect for property, and access to the courts: all these owe much to freedom of expression manifesting itself as criticism or a power to denounce, which is an individual and collective imperative. Authoritarianism tends to wield its power against freedom of expression as a means to forestall revelation of the truth, to silence differences, to dissuade or frustrate voices of protest and, in the end, to negate the pluralism that is one of the distinctive features of a democratic society. Hence, society’s “democratic senses” must be constantly alert so as to prevent and combat any violation of freedom of expression which might bring with it, sooner or later, other forms of oppression. 2. Limitation of and restrictions on the enjoyment and exercise of freedom of expression. 6. Although the instant case did not occur against a backdrop of authoritarianism, it does bring to mind issues that are both relevant to and important for freedom of expression and, by extension, its institutions and practices in a democratic society. It also draws attention to some of the issues that are at the heart of the contemporary debate. One of these is how to resolve the conflict between legally protected interests and rights, on the one hand, and what constitutes a legitimate reaction to what happens when boundaries are crossed and the exercise of one encroaches upon the other. Of course, this is hardly unexplored territory. Indeed, these topics have been under constant study. The highest national courts and international courts have heard cases involving the exercise of freedom of expression as opposed to other rights and freedoms equally deserving of recognition and protection. The deliberations on the questions raised here have not always resulted in unanimous conclusions. There are, in this area, unfinished deliberations and settlements pending. 7. The judgment adopted by the Court, with which I am in agreement, takes into account, on the one hand, the duality of freedom of expression to which I alluded earlier; but it also considers the limits on the exercise of freedom of expression. The proclamation of the basic rights of man as statute marked the advent of modern man: no longer vassal, but a citizen and titulaire by the mere fact that he is a human being. But the proclamation of the basic rights of man occurred in conjunction with another resounding declaration embodied in the very same documents: that an individual’s rights stop where another’s begin. One is titulaire of rights and exercises them, on condition that the titularite and exercise of those rights do not deny other fellow citizens of the titularite and exercise of their own rights. This boundary, announced in the classic declarations and preserved in modern-day instruments, is