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28. 12. 2012

ANEM RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE DRAFT LAW ON ELECTRONIC MEDIA

Creating favorable media regulatory framework is one of the most important conditions for the development of the media sector, ANEM strongly believe. It is therefore actively participating in the process of creation all of the strategic and regulatory documents in the field of public information with its written recommendations or amendments. As the Ministry of Culture and Media has started work on the set of media laws, including the Law on Electronic Media, ANEM submitted today its written suggestions to the Ministry and the Working Group for the development of media laws, regarding the basic guidelines which ANEM believes to be in the interest of media sector and should be taken into consideration in drafting the Law on Electronic Media.

Bearing in mind the Pre-draft Law presented in June 2012, ANEM has suggested that the following principles be respected in making the law:

1) The independence of a regulatory body competent for the field of electronic media - the regulatory body to be treated as sui generis body and all important issues to be defined solely by the Law on Electronic Media; the regulatory body must be functionally and financially independent of any influence, while the financial independence must ensure the realization of the function of the regulator; financial independence is reflected in the possibility of collecting revenue on two grounds: 1. fees for the provision of media services, which have to be determined functionally, based on legally established measurable and objective criteria; 2. fees for administrative costs, which the regulatory body incurs in providing services, which must be closely associated with the service; a good solution of the Proposed Law is the separation of administrative (holder: the Council) and executive functions (Holder: Director); regarding the selection of members to the Council, the Pre-Draft foresees two solutions - first, that the members of the Council are elected by the National Parliament on the basis of a public competition - an advantage: simplicity, transparency and inability to delay the selection process to the infinity, and the shortcoming: non-stipulation of criteria for the selection of candidates who meet the requirements, hence this has to be additionally defined and amended, whereas the main problem of the second solution, that they are elected by the National Parliament on the basis of the nominations of authorized nominators, is over-powering the competent Parliament's Committee, which is "double-checking" the representativeness of an organization and fulfillment of requirements for candidates, without defining closer criteria for it, which needs to be further specified; for the election of a directors, requirements for expertise need to be defined (the requirements should be identical to the requirements for election to membership of the Council);

2) The publicity and the control of work of regulatory body - the solutions provided in the Pre-Draft law are good and should be appropriately applied to public services broadcasting;

3) Free reception and rebroadcast of media services from other countries - it is necessary to define what exactly is meant by this freedom; to closely define rebroadcast and prevent abuse, bearing in mind the practice of interrupting programs of some foreign channels that are rebroadcast for the purpose of airing advertisements a local advertiser;

4) Technological neutrality - to be implemented in three ways: it is necessary to delete from this law / or modify the provisions of the Pre-Draft pertaining to the technical aspects of providing media services; consistent application of technological neutrality in license issuing system; obligations of media service provider contents-wise must be identical regardless of the platform used;

5) Unauthorized broadcasting, or unauthorized provision of media services - the solution provided in the Pre-Draft decision on stricter liability for unauthorized provision of media services is good, but it is necessary, by amending the relevant law, to strengthen the capacity of regulatory bodies in the field of electronic media and electronic communications by giving authority for inspection oversight.

ANEM will also actively participate in the public debate on the Draft Law, in order to contribute to better solutions in the interest of the media sector and the public as well.