24. 12. 2010

SEVENTEENTH MONITORING REPORT

In November 2010, the media scene was facing various problems. The ones that influenced the most the position of the media were treated in the Seventeenth Monitoring Report of the expert team.

a) New cases of physical attacks and threats to journalists, as well as new court decisions to sentence the perpetrators of attacks on journalists below the legal minimum, indicate that freedom of expression is still neither adequately respected nor protected in the Serbian society. You will find arguments for this assessment in the cases presented in this part of the Report.

b) The monitoring team has also analyzed the implementation of existing laws - the Public Information Law, where it was pointed, by using the information on the European Commission's report on Serbia's progress in 2010, to a bad example of the last year's restrictive amendments to this Law; also indicated was the opinion of journalists' associations regarding the need of self-regulatory body to start functioning as soon as possible, namely the Press Council; the Broadcasting Law, presenting the case of TV SOS channel, which had, discontented with the fact that it could not cover with quality signal the service area for which it had obtained the license, refused to pay broadcasting fee and due to which it had suffered serious legal consequences; and the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, which shows the obscurity of this law in accordance with which broadcasters operate, through the case of implementation of a legal obligation of broadcasters (to submit their lists of used objects of  protection).

c) In the part of the Report relating to the adoption of new legislation, the monitoring team deals with the new Draft Advertising Law, giving suggestions and fundamental objections to its content. This law is very important for broadcasters, especially commercial, as it regulates the acquisition of advertising revenue, as the most important source of their funds.

d) In this period, the competent authorities have not significantly improved the position of the media with their activities. The RBA has indeed made one positive decision, but it has, at the same time, showed the limits of its regulatory authority, namely, insufficient precision of the Broadcasting Law in this regard. In its new draft Regulation on fees for the use of radio frequencies, RATEL has altered the criteria for its determination in relation to the previous Regulation, which may affect the position of the broadcasters. The Ministry of Culture has neither published the Draft Media Strategy, as announced earlier, nor could it be said with certainty when it would, which creates additional problems to the media sector. Collective organizations for protection of copyright and related rights dealt in this period with the fulfillment of their legal obligations. The OFPS has, however, exercised its right by filing complaints against broadcasters to the RBA.

e) There were no significant developments in the field of digitalization in this period. In the part of the Report dealing with the privatization, the authors analyze the revived case of already completed process of privatization and share acquisition of "Novosti", that shows the ill effects of non-transparency of media ownership.

f) In the Conclusion of the Report, the monitoring team goes over the main points, noting that the media landscape in this period was predominantly marked by the postponement in the adoption of the Media Strategy, which has caused ill effects on the media sector, as well as the continuing threat to freedom of expression

The Seventeenth Monitoring Report, created in cooperation of the expert team of the law office "Zivkovic&Samardzic" and ANEM, can be downloaded here, in whole or in part, by clicking on the selected section below.

Section FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION here
Section MONITORING OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EXISTING LAWS here
Section MONITORING OF ADOPTION OF NEW LAWS here
Section MONITORING OF THE ACTIVITIES OF REGULATORY BODIES, AUTHORITIES AND COLLECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS here
Section MONITORING OF THE DIGITALIZATION AND PRIVATIZATION PROCESSES here
Section OVERALL CONCLUSION here
The COMPLETE REPORT can be downloaded here