25. 01. 2012

TWENTY-NINTH MONITORING REPORT

The results of legal monitoring of the Serbian media scene, conducted in December 2011:

Although the Media Strategy, which should be the basis for the regulation of the media system, was finally adopted in September 2011, after two years of painstaking process of its drafting, it had not contributed to positive changes of media situation in Serbia by the end of the year. In fact, many events occurring in December indicated that the government, despite of the Media Strategy being adopted, has no real regard to it. Instead of extensively working on its implementation, the adoption of another law, the Law on Cinematography, which is in direct collision with the Strategy and the media system regulations, creates new problems and can lead to serious disorder in the functioning of the media system. In the part of the Report on the monitoring of the adoption of new laws, the monitoring team gives an expert analysis of the disputed provisions of this Law and their implications for the media sector.

Implementation of the Media Strategy was particularly analyzed in the part of the Report referring to the implementation of existing regulations. In addition to above Law on Cinematography, two more cases are treated: the information on alleged purchase of VAC's shares in dailies Politika, Vecernje novosti and Novi Sad-based Dnevnik by one private media, and proposal of national budget for 2012, which provides for direct funding of certain state-owned media in the total amount of 368 million RSD. In the opinion of the monitoring team, these cases indicate that the Strategy is not being implemented, which should be started with as soon as possible. In addition to the part of the report regarding freedom of expression, two more cases have been used to illustrate the implementation of the Public Information Law.  One of them shows that holders of public office do not comply with the provisions of this law that regulates their obligation to make information on their work available to the public under equal conditions for all journalists and all media.  The other however indicates that there are cases when the media, in their reporting, fail in applying this law. Implementation of the Broadcasting Law is analyzed through the case of the strike of journalists of TV Avala; the analysis points out the shortcomings of this law to regulate such cases.

As for the part of the Report dealing with the monitoring of work of competent authorities, we point out the analysis of work of the Commission for Copyright and Related Rights in the process of determining the tariff of SOKOJ. Through this analysis, the implementation of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, in the part relevant to the media, is also treated.

Freedom of expression was violated in various ways in this period - either by external threats made especially to local media and their journalists or by threats and pressures on journalists inflicted by their managers. Analyzing court proceedings in this period, the authors of the Report point to shortcomings in court practice in media cases which greatly contribute to the sense of insecurity of journalists and continuation of jeopardizing their rights and freedoms.

Changes in the digitalization process have been the subject to a special analysis of the monitoring team. It treats the positive developments in this area, but also the concerning disagreement of regulators with the competent Ministry regarding the way in which this process should be led. Dealing with the issue of privatization of the media, the Report's authors point to the existing legal basis for its implementation, and also analyze the provisions of the Media Strategy related to this issue.

The Conclusion of the Report contains a professional assessment of the monitoring team on what marked the media scene in the last month of 2011.

The Twenty-ninth Monitoring Report was prepared by the expert team from the law office "Zivkovic&Samardzic" in cooperation with ANEM. You can download the report or any of its sections here.

Section FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION here
Section MONITORING OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EXISTING REGULATIONS 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