Karadžić: I plan to, but for now I will not announce new competitions for the director of the program at RTV and seven main editors.

As he pointed out, “he estimates that the functioning of the house at this moment is such that he will not announce competitions for now, but he plans to do so certainly in a relatively short period of time.”

Karadžić reminded that under the new Law on Public Media Services, the director announces competitions, conducts them, and decides on the results.

In response to a question from UNS about what prevents him from announcing them immediately, Karadžić stated that the position of the director is a business position and that he uses it as he sees fit for RTV.

Let us recall that the Management Board of the Public Media Institution “Radio-Television Vojvodina” made a decision on October 7 of this year to invalidate the public competition for the appointment of the program director, as well as the competition for the appointment of the chief and responsible editors of the media, which had been announced in March of this year.

As stated on the RTV website, the decision was made in accordance with the Opinion of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications (MIT) dated August 15 of this year.

In its opinion, MIT responded to RTV that the decisions to announce public competitions must be invalidated because after their adoption on June 25, the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Public Media Services came into force, which amended the provisions related to the selection of the program director and the chief editors.

As stated in the decision, the Ministry made this opinion “taking into account that the new law does not stipulate the procedure for concluding already initiated competitions, as well as the application of the general principle of the prohibition of retroactivity of laws.”

The competition for seven chief and responsible editors and program directors of RTV, who have been in acting positions for several years, was announced at the end of March.

Previously, the main commissioner of the “Independence” union at RTV, Darko Šper, had been on a hunger strike for seven days, and one of Šper’s demands addressed to Karadžić was to announce the competition for the chief and responsible editors and the program director.

The Dilemma of Who Chooses the Editors

In August, UNS asked Goran Karadžić what was happening with the announced competitions.

At that time, he told UNS that the management of this media house was waiting for MIT's response to the request for interpretation of the Law on Public Media Services (ZJMS), regarding whether the editors are chosen by him or the Management Board of RTV.

The reason for this legal dilemma, Karadžić explained at the time, is that the competition was announced in March, when the previous ZJMS was in force, according to which the editors are chosen by the Management Board.

In mid-June, amendments and supplements to the Law on Public Media Services were adopted, stipulating that the editors are chosen by the general director of this media house.

“The general director of the public media service appoints and dismisses the chief editors, who are appointed after a conducted public competition for a period of four years and may be appointed for a maximum of two terms, and the reasoned decision on the appointment is made public,” states the new Law on Public Media Services.

Uncertain about whether to apply the new or old law when selecting editors, the management of RTV, Karadžić says, sought the Ministry's opinion.

“We realized that there is a legal ambiguity here, and that lawyers provide different interpretations. Therefore, we asked the Ministry for an opinion on the best way to select editors and the program director,” said Karadžić.

Source: UNS