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29. 08. 2012

THIRTY-FIFTH MONITORING REPORT

According to the findings of the monitoring team, in July 2012, the media scene in Serbia looked like this:

Freedom of expression - Authors of the Monitoring Report treat the case of verbal and physical attack on the journalist and cameraman of Radio Television of Vojvodina while filming the fire threatening to lead to an ecological accident, at a shop in Becej, as well as the case of denying access to journalist of Ljig News Service at the meeting of the Municipal Council in Ljig. The latter is also the discrimination of the journalist against representatives of other media, whose team continued to record the session. The Report points out that the prohibition of discrimination against journalists and media, as well as obligation of transparency of state bodies and local self-governments in their work, in the absence of sanctions for those responsible for its violation, remains only declarative. The section of the Report dealing with the court proceedings presents and analyze four cases. By using the example of determining responsibility for the seizure of the camera from team of journalists in one case, the extent to which the proceedings are being drag on is shown, as well as how it is difficult for journalists to achieve legal satisfaction in the court for attacks and interference in their work. Namely, the process has not even come close to the first instance verdict, 11 years after the indictment, after 37 scheduled hearings and conducted three expert hearings. The Report also analyzes the outcome of the proceeding against the media which, in the absence of complete information obtained from the court in connection with a person who was legally sentenced to prison term for extortion, had inaccurately reported that the conviction was related to another case of extortion, in which the proceedings against the same person were terminated. The Report points to inconsistency in the treatment of assessment of due journalistic care by Serbian courts in each individual case, as well as proportionality in judgments. The Report also deals with the case of a journalist Laszlo Sas, who was, due to published critical article on the leader of the Hungarian right-extremist movement "64 Zupanije" Laszlo Torokai, fined for libel. The verdict to pay the fine was later replaced with prison sentence because Sas did not have money to pay the fine. The Report points to the need to libel and defamation be urgently decriminalized. The Report also cites a ruling by the Constitutional Court, based on a constitutional appeal of Brankica Stankovic and Veran Matic, the author of the investigative series "Insider" and responsible editor of Television B92 respectively. The ruling established the violation of journalists' right to a fair trial by failure of the courts to present evidence that they had proposed. In the concrete case, the court failed to formally request confidential document which the journalists called upon, and passed the charging verdict without checking whether their assertions were true.

Implementation of existing laws - Implementation of the Broadcasting Law was monitored in the context of the candidate list for members of the Programming Council of the public service broadcasting institution of Vojvodina. Implementation of the Law on Personal Data Protection and the Law on Electronic Communications is treated in the Report from the point of results of oversight of their use by telephone operators in Serbia and recommendations for improvements, compiled by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection and the Ombudsman. It turned out that the Interior Ministry and security services have access, without court authorization, to the databases of telephone operators on who the citizens called, when and from where. The number of such individual accesses to databases is measured with six-digit and seven-digit numbers annually. It was also found that the operators retained data (based on which it was possible to determine the source and destination of the communication, its beginning, duration and end, whether it was the voice call, SMS, or MMS message, email, etc.) far longer than a period of one year, provided for by the Law on Electronic Communications. The seriousness of this practice is particularly emphasized in the context of the right of journalists to protect their sources of information.

Part of the Report that deals with the monitoring of the adoption of new laws, is treating the new Law on Ministries, adopted on July 26, 2012, which provides for a different allocation of competence for specific issues relevant to the media sector within the government of the Republic of Serbia. Competence of the former unified Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society is now divided between the Ministry of Culture and Media, on one hand, and the Ministry of Foreign and Domestic trade and Telecommunications, on the other. The conclusion of the monitoring team is that, like in the case of previous recomposition of ministries in 2011, this new ruling majority, by forming the cabinet that will have fewer ministers, is primarily interested in leaving the impression of its commitment to a cutback, and not to fundamentally reform the state administration.

The work of the authorities - in this part of the Report, the authors analyze four decisions of the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RBA) to revoke the broadcasting licenses before their expiry. The number of broadcasters in Serbia continues to decline as a result of incapability to pay their stations' debts. The state, at the same time, does not react with stimulative measures that could improve the consolidation of the media market, in a way that would ensure the preservation of media pluralism. Monitoring team analyzes the annual review of the telecommunications market in the Republic of Serbia in 2011, released by the Republic Agency for Electronic Communications (RATEL). In particular, it focuses on a part of the report referring to the pirate broadcasters, and compares it with the new data from July, showing that Serbia now even has a pirate station with national coverage, namely a network of 11 illegal transmitters across the country. This fact, according to the assessment of the monitoring team, shows devastating extent of unwillingness or inability of the system to cope with radio piracy. The Report also analyzes a decision of the Press Council's Commission for Complaints, particularly noting the possibility that the regular court could pass a different decision on the same matter, if court proceeding is initiated, based on stricter requirements of the Journalists' Code of Conduct in relation to Public Information Law in the concrete case. The Report also notes a new workforce solutions in the Government of the Republic of Serbia, particularly the appointment of ministers in ministries of particular importance for the media sector. Part of the Report is dealing with the organizations for collective protection of copyright and related rights, and monitors the continuation of negotiations that should hopefully lead to an agreement about the discounts that will be applied to the valid tariff of Sokoj, and which are conducted with the assistance of the Intellectual Property Office.

The process of digitalization - the Report addresses the issues of certification of equipment, set top boxes and TV sets for receiving digital signal, in the context of the announcement of the public company "Broadcasting Equipment and Communications" (ETV) that it will distribute labels guaranteeing the suitability of equipment for receiving DVB-T2 signal. The authors of the Report found that this announcement was not in accordance with the relevant Rulebook on radio equipment and telecommunications terminal equipment, issued pursuant to the Law on technical requirements for products and conformity assessment, and that it was expected that the state would directly, rather than ETV or any individual company, define a mechanism to facilitate to citizens the use of equipment of different technical standards available in the market. Thus, the emergence of various certificates or stickers, which would be issued by various entities, threatens to cause confusion among consumers.

Privatization - since this process is still in no progress, waiting for the views that the new government should take on the issue of the remaining media in which the state has its share, the Report analyzes the statements of the leaders of the new parliamentary majority on sale of shares of German media group WAZ in the daily newspaper "Politika" to the Russian company "East media group" from Moscow. The concern of the new government over already privatized 50% share in "Politika" passing from ownership of one foreign private company to another, according to the monitoring team, is not necessarily caused only by the desire to ensure the transparency of media ownership, but possibly fear of potential loss of control over this media, whose 50% is still owned by the state.

The Conclusion contains the opinion and assessment of the authors of the Report that the new government, which was finally appointed on July 27, 2012, is facing an extremely serious chore in the media sector, and that it will need to simultaneously work on a number of crucial issues. On the concrete example of the reaction to the sale of shares of German WAZ Media Group in the daily "Politika", the authors found that the new government should surely be supported in finding mechanisms that would guarantee transparent media ownership, but also that a certain extent of precaution should be kept as well, since the government is yet to prove the sincerity of its intention to reform the media sector in a way that will guarantee media pluralism and media freedom in Serbia.

The Thirty-fifth Monitoring Report was prepared by the expert team of the law office "Zivkovic&Samardzic", in cooperation with ANEM. Here it can be taken over in whole or in parts, by clicking on the selected section below.