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28. 12. 2009

SIXTH REPORT ON LEGAL MONITORING OF SERBIAN MEDIA SCENE

Monitoring Report for November is the sixth report of the expert team, which continuously monitors the media scene as of May 2009. Findings of the legal team points out that even in this period there was no quality change in solving the systemic problems of the media scene. The state continued to send contradictory messages to the media sector, regarding all crucial issues that the functioning of the sector depended on.

Looking at the areas subject to monitoring,  it follows from Report:

  • in the field of freedom of expression - threats and pressure on the media of certain powerful groups or individuals grow stronger, trying to prevent the free dissemination of information on issues which the public has an interest to know; also visible are ill effects of failure to adopt certain regulatory acts, especially when it comes to licenses for cable broadcasting; the number of procedures led against the responsible in the private companies founders of the media is on the rise which badly affect the freedom of the flow of ideas, information and opinions
  • implementation of existing laws shows that the two most important laws for the media - Law on Public Information, as the crowning media law, and the Law on Broadcasting, as the most important for broadcasters, were often the subject of attention of the media public. Recent amendments to the Law on Public Information continue to cause controversy, although their application has started by registration of public media in the register prescribed by this law. RBA is more transparently monitoring the program content of broadcasters, which has, as it seems, scared cable distributors, who have recently unnecessarily and inappropriately switched off programs of some foreign TV stations during the three-day mourning for the death of Patriarch Pavle
  • two of the new laws that were in the procedure at the time, were of specific interest for the reporting - Law on Classified Data and Amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance. Although not typically media laws, they will significantly affect the future work of journalists, especially those dealing with investigative journalism. After their adoption of the final text, it will be possible to assess to what extent and how they will make easier or more difficult the work of journalists
  • the part of the Report that deals with the work of the competent bodies provides the information on specific engagement of some of them. RATEL has been working on reducing fees for broadcasters, which is commendable, as well as the fact that it has put to public debate the Book of Rules, which regulates it. Parliament's Culture and Information Committee has intensely focused on the issue of election of new members of the Council of the RBA, while the Ministry of Culture has been dealing still with the issue of application of criticized amended Law on Public Information
  • digitalization and privatization processes did not show any progress in the reporting period. The delay in the implementation of the Digitalization Strategy and the lack of any privatization strategy, show how little the government is interested to create better conditions for broadcasters
  • Conclusion contains assessment of the media situation in that period, based on carefully conducted monitoring, pointing again to the fundamental problem of the media sector - the lack of media strategy, which is still on a level of just talk.

This report was done in cooperation Law Office Zivkovic & Samardzic and ANEM.

You will find more detailed information in the Report, which you can download here, partially or fully, by clicking on the selected section below:

Section MONITORING OF THE DIGITALIZATION AND PRIVATIZATION PROCESSES here
Section FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION here
Section OVERALL CONCLUSION here
Section MONITORING OF THE PROCESS OF ADOPTION OF NEW LEGISLATION here
The COMPLETE REPORT can be downloaded here
Section MONITORING OF THE ACTIVITIES OF REGULATORY BODIES, AUTHORITIES AND COLLECTIVE SOCIETIES here
Section MONITORING OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EXISTING LAWS here

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