ON THE PACKAGE OF DRAFT AMENDMENTS TO BROADCAST LEGISLATION
A1+
10:02 pm | April 09, 2009
Society
STATEMENT
OF YEREVAN PRESS CLUB,
"INTERNEWS" MEDIA SUPPORT NGO,
MEDIA DIVERSITY INSTITUTE-ARMENIA,
COMMITTEE TO PROTECT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION,
"ASPAREZ" JOURNALIST’S CLUB,
VANADZOR PRESS CLUB
ON THE PACKAGE OF DRAFT AMENDMENTS TO BROADCAST LEGISLATION
The agenda of the RA National Assembly includes the second hearing
of the package of draft amendments to the RA Laws "On Television
and Radio", "Regulations of the National Commission on Television
and Radio", "Regulations of the RA National Assembly", "On State
Duty". Despite the few improvements against the previous version of
the package strongly criticized by our organizations in the statement
of February 3, 2009, the document, as we see it, remains far from
the demands of the time.
Any legislative initiative on television and radio must today be
assessed from the perspective of solving the four cornerstone problems
of the Armenian broadcast sphere:
– ensuring the independence of the National Commission on Television
and Radio – the body that regulates the activities of TV and radio
companies;
– real reformation of the Public TV and Radio Company, inclusion of
PTRC in the field of legal regulation, creation of mechanisms of its
responsibility and accountability to the society;
– formation of new legal conditions of impartial and transparent
broadcast licensing competitions;
– revocation of the ban on allocation of frequencies.
The legislative changes that do not entail basic solutions to the
problems above can be only seen as cosmetic.
In this regard the improvement of certain provisions of the draft law
package on broadcasting, proposed for the second hearing by the RA
National Assembly, are nothing but a reform imitation and do not in
any way contribute to overcoming the total control of the authorities
over the TV and radio air in Armenia.
As a main argument to support the package its authors refer to the
positive assessment of the Council of Europe expert. Meanwhile, the
CE assessment, while phrased in a very polite and cautious manner,
contains criticism of a number of important clauses of the drafts. In
particular, this document clearly states the absence of due guarantees
to the independence of the National Commission on Television and Radio
and the Council of Public TV and Radio Company, as well as about the
incompliance of the PTRC structure to the internationally accepted
standards of good governance.
Even if one shares the satisfaction of the CE expert with most
of the remaining provisions of the package, the two mentioned
shortcomings, referring to the cornerstone issues of the broadcasting
legislation, render the voting of the RA NA deputies for the package
questionable. What is the value of amendments to the RA Law "On
Television and Radio", if they do not call for a basic review of the
mechanisms permanently criticized over the past 12 years, ever since
the debate of the broadcast legislation started?
It is quite surprising that the Council of Europe expert, assessing the
package of the draft law on regulating the broadcasting, overlooked
the recommendations of the Resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe 1532 (2007), 1609 (2008), 1620 (2008) and
1643 (2009). Addressing the issues of Armenia’s compliance with its
commitments to the Council of Europe and functioning of democratic
institutions in the country, these Resolutions, proceeding from the
political situation in the country, define the agenda of reforms,
also with regard to media. The recommendations raise the issues of
independence of the regulatory body, the transparency of broadcast
licensing competitions, and the possibility of "A1+" TV company
taking part in them, the ban on frequency allocation. Considering
the draft package without taking into account the four most recent
PACE recommendations on Armenia, the Council of Europe expert, on
the one hand, actually overlooked some questionable provisions of the
legislation in force (first of all, the ban on frequency allocation),
and on the other – assessed a whole number of legislative innovations
without taking into account the problematic practices of late
(transparency and impartiality of broadcast licensing competitions).
The expert welcomes the expansion of Article 50 of the RA Law "On
Television and Radio" that call for the provision of "full reasons"
to the applicants that were refused a license. A reference is made
here to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of June
17, 2008 on the case of "A1+" TV company founder, "Meltex" LLC. Yet,
in essence, the new draft law proposes nothing new with regard to
justification of license refusal, the mechanisms of defining criteria
that NCTR members should be guided with during the assessment of the
applications are still not prescribed.
One could have quoted a number of other examples of the insufficiently
thorough analysis of the draft law package by CE expert. Yet the
problem lies not with the particularities, but with the technique
that the media legislation is being shaped with in Armenia. Despite
the fact that a working group of local experts is set up adjacently
to the specialized standing committee of the National Assembly, the
recent drafts have not been discussed with this working group. The
international experts meet and discuss drafts only with their authors
or MPs interested in the draft promotion. Objections, comments,
clarifications as to the problems of practical applications of certain
clauses that the representatives of Armenian media community could
share, public debate – all this is of no interest to any one for
a long time already. Such closed process of legislation formation
cannot yield other results than the ones we have today.
Meanwhile, when the authorities are interested to promote certain
initiative, even if extremely unprofessional in its development,
it is immediately in the limelight of attention, debate is raised
about it on all TV channels. A vivid example of this is the draft law
on introducing new provisions to the Civil Code, stipulating moral
damage compensation, that has made so much noise lately. The vehement
endorsement of this initiative can be hardly regarded as anything other
than an attempt to divert the public attention from real problems
in media, obstruction of efforts of journalistic organizations in
legislation and media self-regulation.
Unfortunately, such red herrings have been used more than once and
run contrary to the policy of strengthening civil society as declared
by the RA authorities.
Proceeding from this, we call on the RA National Assembly:
1. To revoke from circulation the package of draft laws on broadcasting
and to come back to it after thorough review and improvement
in accordance with the international commitments of Armenia and
the suggestions of the working group at the RA National Assembly
Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport
Issues. Otherwise we see no point in further participation in the
working group and shall call back our representatives from it;
2. To immediately include a draft law on abolishing the ban on
holding broadcast licensing competitions in the agenda of the National
Assembly. To refuse from the idea of digitalization at the expense
of free competition and media plurality. To hold open debate of the
TV and radio broadcast digitalization program;
3. To delay the initiatives related to new forms of journalistic
liability for defamation until the completion of processes aimed at
improving the broadcast legislation, guaranteeing true public service
broadcasting, pluralistic private TV and radio, media accountability
system formation. The attempts of prioritizing the issue of legal
liability of journalists damaging the development of civilized media
market will be viewed by us to be directed at the restriction of free
expression in Armenia.