22. 11. 2010

SIXTEENTH MONITORING REPORT

The month of October 2010 did not bring much new or good for the media scene in Serbia. You will find out why, in the Sixteenth Monitoring Report of the expert team for that period.

a) According to the monitoring team, the month of October was marked by extreme cases of physical attacks on journalists, but also new threats that have led to an increase in the number of journalists in Serbia that had to be put under direct police protection. Analyzed cases of attacks on journalists, one of which was carried out by members of the police, show that the authorities still do not have adequate respect for freedom of expression, that they do not contribute to the prevention of its threats and violations with their activities, as they deal with consequences of such behavior rather than its causes, in a non-precluding way. Also, uneven court practice and uncertainty about the outcome of the disputes in media cases are one of the main causes for reduced use of investigative reporting and increasing self-censorship in the media.

b) Monitoring of the implementation of existing laws again points out the problem of legal insecurity of the media and journalists, as a result of the fact that the provisions of the Law on Amendments to the Public Information Law, declared unconstitutional in July, are still in force. However, in this part of the Report two cases are also analyzed, in which the action of the media was unprofessional and questionable from the point of application of relevant legislation - in the first case, by going to another unacceptable extreme in relation to the prohibition against the violation of the presumption of innocence, and the second, by abusing the freedom of expression through a drastic violation of the individual's right to privacy and rights of minors for the purpose of breaking the strike of the Union of Serbian judiciary.

c) In this period, there has been no adoption of new laws relevant to the media; the Draft Media Strategy has not been brought as well, whose passing has been pending since the beginning of October. As this document is very important for the further development of the media sector, but also for future legislative work on a number of new laws, the monitoring team is indicating on time the extreme importance of the nature of strategic decisions as well as answers to controversial questions, such as state funding of the media and the state ownership in the media, that would be offered in the Media Strategy.

d) The activities of the competent authorities, listed in the Report, have not particularly affected the position of the media, although some of them may be of relevance to them. For example, the EPRA event in Belgrade had dealt with the digitalization, advertising in the media and the EU legislation in the broadcasting sector, which are important topics for the media; Drafts of three RATEL set of Rules at a public debate are also important for broadcasters in the period prior to digitalization; the statement of the Culture Minister on the basic principles and essence of the Media Strategy greatly concerning the media; also important for the media is how the collective organizations operate whether their actions are in accordance with the law.

e) There have been no new developments in the field of privatization and digitalization even in this period. Most of the obligations foreseen in the Action Plan of the Digitalization Strategy has not been fulfilled within the envisaged deadlines, while there is still neither plan, nor strategy for the completion of the privatization process of the media - the alleged reason for this were the norms of several laws passed since 2007 to date that were in direct conflict with the media laws and whose interpretation has been disputable and very extensive for years.

f) In the Conclusion of the Report, the monitoring team points out to the fact that the media scene in this period has been mainly marked by poor state of freedom of expression and the worrying situation of the media and journalists, but also certain occurrences in the media that were not good either for them or for the profession.

The Sixteenth Monitoring Report, produced in cooperation of the expert team of the law office "Zivkovic&Samardzic" and ANEM, can be downloaded here in whole or in part, by clicking on the selected section below.

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