Journalists have the right not to disclose the identity of their sources.
The right not to reveal journalistic sources
The protection of journalistic sources is one of the key rights that journalists have in order to exercise their freedom of expression and to fulfil their function as a ‘’public watchdog”. Without such protection, journalists’ sources may refrain from helping them to fulfil their function. Journalists have this right regardless of whether their sources obtained the information legally or illegally. The right not to reveal their sources protects journalists not only from specific orders to reveal the name of the source, but also from actions by the police or some other public authority which could lead to the identification of the source.
example The police cannot order a journalist to provide documents containing a lead to the identification of the source, listen in on a journalist’s phone conversations or search his/her house and data storage devices.
However, the secrecy of journalistic sources is not absolute and can be restricted in exceptional circumstances:
Restrictions
The editor, journalist or author of the article is only obliged to disclose the source of the information in cases where this is provided for by criminal law.
Under the Criminal Procedure Act, journalists, editors or authors of articles are exempted from the duty to testify with regard to the disclosure of the source of information, unless the disclosure is necessary to prevent an imminent danger to human life or health or to prevent the commission of a crime punishable by three or more years' imprisonment or certain other serious crimes.