24. 09. 2009

JANKOVIC: CONSTITUTIONALITY OF INFORMATION LAW DISPUTED

Serbian Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic launched yesterday the assessment of the constitutionality of the Amendments to the Law on Public Information.

Belgrade, 24.09.2009 (Blic) - Jankovic explained that some provisions of the Law, adopted recently by the Parliament, were unconstitutional and needed to be terminated because they constrict the freedoms and rights guarantied by the Constitution of Serbia. Jankovic urged the Constitutional Court to verify whether the constitutional freedom to establish a media had been violated by provision stipulating that only local legal entities could found a public media, but not our citizens, private entities and foreign private and legal entities. Jankovic also disputed the provision by which the founder of a public media could not transfer the right to a media or the right to publish a media, because it was an unconstitutional association of someone's name with the publishing of that media.

By Jankovic's analysis, a temporary measure to suspend the publishing of a public media until the final verdict in proceedings of the corporate offense cases is unconstitutional. Prohibition to publish a public media that has not been registered in the Public Media Register is also deemed violation of the Constitution and binding international legal norms, as well as pecuniary fines in such case.

Finally, the pecuniary fines for corporate misdemeanor and offenses are higher than penalties for those under other laws, which violated the constitutional principle of equality before the law and may lead to shutdown of media.

In a statement to Blic, the Ombudsman pointed out that he had appealed to the Constitutional Court to come to the decision quickly and emphasized that the court could suspend the application of the disputed provisions until the passing of in meritum decision. The Constitutional Court is authorized to revoke the principle of any law on the grounds of the unconstitutionality; there is no right to appeal against the Court's decision.