Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

prior restraint

A governmental restriction on speech or publication before its actual expression. ( Prior restraints violate the First Amendment unless the speech is obscene, is defamatory, or creates a clear and present danger to society. "The legal doctrine of prior restraint (or formal censorship before publication) is probably the oldest form of press control. Certainly it is one of the most efficient, since one censor, working in the watershed, can create a drought of information and ideas long before they reach the fertile plain of people's minds. In the United States, the doctrine of prior restraint has been firmly opposed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, and by the Supreme Court, perhaps most notably in the case of Near v. Minnesota, decided in 1931. But the philosophy behind that doctrine lives zestfully on, and shows no signs of infirmities of age." David G. Clark & Earl R. Hutchinson, Mass Media and the Law 11 (1970). prior-use bar See PUBLIC-USE BAR.