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31. 10. 2012

THIRTY-SEVENTH MONITORING REPORT

Serbian Media Scene in September 2012

Freedom of expression - five cases of different types of pressures, threats and attacks on journalists and media, treated in the Report, testify to the fact that it is still very difficult to practice journalism in Serbia, and increasingly difficult to operate as an independent media - when it comes to journalists, the failure to identify perpetrators of the attacks on them, but also those ordering the attacks, has led to the fact that some journalists are under permanent long-term police protection, which has proven in this period to have serious lapses in work, which could have severely jeopardized the safety of protected journalists; the case of physical attack on a journalist and her family over the information she has made public using blogs and social networks on the Internet, also indicates that competent authorities are not doing their job efficiently and professionally when it comes to attacks on journalists; on the occasion of threatening and nationalist graffiti at the door of a bilingual media outlet, which constitutes illegal pressure exerted on media professionals obstructing their work, the authors point to the provisions of the Criminal Code applicable to this case, as well as the standards of protection against hate speech set up for media by legislators; when it comes to media, two cases in this period indicate that the lack of effective control mechanisms of spending budget money and state aid control have twice as negative effect on media - on one hand, every dealing of media with state authorities and companies are predestined to be labeled as suspicious, which some use to put pressure on their work, while on the other, the absence of these mechanisms leaves the possibility to some local power figures to treat their legal obligation to provide conditions for the information of local importance, established in the public interest, as their right to spent budget money in the interest of their own maintaining in power and to demand obedience and servility of the media that are receiving these funds. In this part of the Report, the authors analyze court proceedings, in particular the one showing that the prior dire practice of courts, to provide politicians and public figures in general with a higher level of protection than the average citizen when it comes to criticism, has changed for the better.

In the part of the Report dealing with the implementation of existing laws, for the Public Information Law, the authors emphasize the positive decision of the new government to establish an international commission to investigate the murders of journalists Dada Vujasinovic, Slavko Curuvija and Milan Pantic, whose unsolved murders have been burdening the media sector for many years. The authors also analyze the implication of such decision to the freedom of the media and what this says about those who have made it. The implementation of the Broadcasting Law is observed through an analysis of the issue of financing the public service, which occupied the attention of the public media in this period. As for the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, the authors emphasize the assessment of the Commissioner Sabic regarding the degree the right of access to public information has been exercised, which clearly points to what is the important for the media sector - that some media are using this right more frequently and even better, but also that unacceptable practice of discrimination is still present, in terms of media access to information of public importance which provides some media with preferential status.

Although there was no adoption of new laws of importance to the media, in this period, there were information on both formal and informal working groups established with the aim to create a set of media laws. This fact shows that the new government is very interested in this issue, including those who are not authorized to do so, but also that there is still a dire practice of non-transparent conduct of the authorities, at least when the media sector is in question.

The results of the work of competent authorities in this period, reported on and analyzed by the authors of this Report: regulatory bodies - launched proceedings against 35 broadcasters for revocation of broadcasting licenses before the expiration of the period for which they are issued, due to failure to pay license fee for a longer period of time; as many illegal broadcasters have continued to broadcast program, whereas the authorities still have no real mechanism and resources to effectively resolve this problem; the state authorities - announced redefining of the Media Strategy, as well as priorities of the Ministry of Culture and Media in the media sector, whose implementation was entered into without transparency and participation of the media community; the collective organizations for the protection of copyright and related rights - signed Protocol on Cooperation between SOKOJ and ANEM, which has provided to broadcasters significant discounts to the extremely high minimum fees and benefits to pay off old debts; for those broadcasters who are paying SOKOJ the percentage fee, the issue of determining the basis for the calculation of compensation has been arguable for years, however, in this period, it was resolved in favor of a broadcaster in a court case but which, unfortunately, is not binding for any future same or similar cases.

The part of the Report dealing with the digitalization process provides information about the current work focus of the Ministry responsible for the communications, as well as problems it is encountering in the switch-over to digital TV broadcasting, with authors' pointing to possible solutions to these problems.

Starting from the declarations of the new government that the state would withdraw from ownership in media, in the part of the Report dealing with the process of privatization of the media, the authors analyze the current state of the media market and suggest the necessary preconditions for the successful ownership transformation of state-owned media.

What should the new government find the most important and what should it do to achieve progress in the media sphere, is provided in the Conclusion of the Report.

The Thirty-seventh Monitoring Report is done by the expert team of ANEM Legal Department, law office "Zivkovic&Samardzic", in cooperation with ANEM. You can download it here, in whole or in part, by clicking the selected section below.