Deriving from the inherent controversy in Article 10 of the ECHR containing in its first section a fundamental freedom but at the same time in its second section justifications for restricting and limiting that freedom, the paper addresses the discourses in Plato’s "Politeia" on truth and censorship as they represent the sides of ethics and politics together.
It can be inferred that Plato’s "Politeia" distinguishes between the "more" Socratic ideas of truth and more Platonic ideas of censorship. The ideas of truth, for example, presented as the idea of naturally superior people with love of the truth, or of difference between the philosopher (who discusses) and a rhetorician and his trainees (who deceive), could be regarded as comparable with the first section of Article 10 of the ECHR. The ideas of censorship, for example, the justifications of censorship (to make life and societal processes easier for common people, for the good of the city, to maintain good behaviour, for traditionality in educational process, for unity of rulers, fpolitical stability, creation of image of just State for citizens, to maintain social harmony), could be regarded as justifications of derogations in the second section of Article 10 of the ECHR.
Understood that way, Article 10 of the ECHR, similarly to Plato’s "Politeia", contains both ethics and politics at the same time, combining the individual (self) and collective will. Both texts are political, still one could argue that truth and derogations of it together in the ECHR and Plato’s "Politeia" constitute a basis of justness, just society.
