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30. 06. 2012

THIRTY-THIRD MONITORING REPORT

Authors of the Monitoring Report for May 2012 are of the opinion that in this period, the media scene in Serbia was marked with the following:

Freedom of expression - in the period covered by this Monitoring Report, there were several cases that followed the pattern of threats and pressures that numerous local media and their journalists were exposed to almost daily. Such is the case of making threats and denying of information to a certain media by the Mayor of the Backa Palanka municipality, as well as the case of accusations for alleged supporting of terrorism directed at an agency's editor in a situation where she was only making available information on issues relevant for public interest to know. Monitoring team also dealt with the case of court proceedings initiated by lawsuits of Tomislav Nikolic, the then presidential candidate, against media that had questioned his education level and qualifications, which were especially interesting because of the exorbitant damage claims that could limit freedom of expression, cause self-censorship and influence the media to avoid dealing with issues of public importance, but also because of the test the courts would need to do while deciding on this legal matter. Continuing to observe the proceedings on the lawsuit of Vladimir Jesic against Velimir Ilic, which the journalists had filed back in 2003 for incident during the recording of the interview with the political leader, the monitoring team analyzed the developments in the proceedings, indicating the importance of judicial decision in this case, which should set standards of accountability of politicians for attacks on journalists and equal application of procedural rules and legislations for citizens and political figures. On the occasion of the attempt to open a daily under the name of a famous TV program, the authors analyze the legal remedies available to media that want to protect their intellectual property rights, in particular their trademark or the right deriving from the trademark.

Implementation of existing laws - the application of the Broadcasting Law is observed from the decision of the RBA Council to pass the binding interpretations of Article 16 of its General Binding Instructions for broadcasters during election campaign - what do they contain, what they prohibit and insist on, why they have been passed, how much they have helped media and whether they have achieved the goal regarding the respect of prohibition of hate speech during election campaign - these are just some of the questions the authors are dealing with in the Report. Moreover, regarding the rules pertaining to election campaign, the monitoring team analyzes the application of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights in the case of Aleksandar Stankovic, editor and HRT journalist and his request for protection of his copyrights on occasion of misuse of segments of his program aired on Croatian HRT during the election campaign in Serbia. In this part of the Report, the authors also deal with the application of Criminal Code, specifically the provisions pertaining to defamation, in the case of revoking the punishment with the fine to a person for insulting public figure in media and substituting it with the prison sentence.

In this period, there were no sittings of the Serbian Parliament or adoption of any new legislation or any other law relevant to media.

The work of competent authorities - in this part of the Report, the authors analyze the decision of the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RBA), ordering cable operators to cease broadcasting of certain programs on election day, on the grounds of violating of electoral science. The authors also observe the decision of the Press Council's Commission for Complaints to reject a complaint, which is based on a proper separation of factual judgments from value judgments, as well as the outcome of 5 open competitions of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society for co-financing the media projects in 2012 and their regularity thereof; activities of the collective organization Sokoj on establishing regional cooperation that may be important for future determining of its tariff of fees.

In the area of digitalization, the authors elaborate on the work of Initial network, public company "Broadcasting Equipment and Communications" (ETV) and possible problems that may affect the process of digitalization in the future.

Privatization of media - In this part of the Report, the authors deal with the controversies in the case of "Novosti", arbitrary disputes of VAC and Milan Beko and issue of state ownership in this media.

By conveying some of the findings of the Report of Serbian media scene based on 27 indicators of the Council of Europe, in the Conclusion of the Report, the authors give assessment of the media situation in Serbia in this period.

The Thirty-third Monitoring Report is created by the expert team of the law office "Zivkovic&Samardzic" in cooperation with ANEM. You can download it here, in whole or in parts, by clicking on the selected section below.