01. 09. 2008

BRADIĆ: NEW LAWS SOON

Belgrade, September 1, 2008 (B92/Tanjug) – The Minister of Culture, Nebojša Bradić, said that, although the laws in the sphere of the media and culture existed, they were not implemented in practice.

The Mayor of Zaječar has recently closed down the local theater, “Beograd film” was sold, many cinemas do not function, or will change their scope of activity and become cafés or casinos. The Ministry still hopes that the new Law on Culture will regulate the relationships in that sphere.

“One of the first laws to be amended will be the one on radio diffusion, and will be finalized in October. The other laws which are ready will enter the parliamentary procedure by the same dynamics”, said Bradić in the “Prelistavanje” show on Radio B92.

“I hope that the work will be done well during next year, including the Law on Electronic Media, which the Ministry of Telecommunications is in charge of”, said he.

“The Law on the Media will be drafted, and that in itself is enough to have legal procedures, which will help us function better”, claimed he.

The Minister announced that the privatization process of the media ought to continue in the following months, expressing his belief that the law amendments and interventions in other ministries would be carried out in a high quality fashion as well.

When asked who his earlier statements about the necessity of defining the management structures in the media referred to, Bradić responded that what he had in mind was the state’s share in the media, and that he believed that the state structure ought to “step out” from the media ownership scheme, so that they could be practically free and that the availability of public information would be equal for all.

He also announced the transformation of the local media “from the state to the private ownership”, which “has been halted”. It would allow the media to be truly independent; likewise, that would be expected of the local media in the languages of national minorities, which have a special status.

Bradić added that they needed to pay attention primarily to the sphere of media ownership, where there were “models to keep an important percentage, which allowed the retention of the program foundation on the basis of which the media could continue to function”.

“The public service (RTS) is already beyond the financing capacity of the state, and is financed independently; thus, the state has already lost practical influence in that sphere”, said Bradić.

He added that “as far as regional services and other public services were concerned, including the Radio-Television of Vojvodina, we needed to find the way to carry out the transformation and pass the Law on Public Services”, and that it was one of the actions the Ministry planed for the future.

When asked whether he would further deal with the responsibility of the media when revealing the controversial photos of the human head, found in a plastic bag on August 21 on the sidewalk of King Aleksandar Boulevard, Bradić reminded the public that the Ministry of Culture had already intervened and filed a lawsuit to the magistrate.

Stressing that “laws ought to prescribe certain rules which should be observed, and that there also existed professional issues”, Bradić highlighted that there were fines for jeopardizing the rights of the victim, as well as in cases of child pornography or showing minor victims of violence.