06. 06. 2003

Broadcast Council member resigns over chairman

BELGRADE, June 5, 2003 – The Serbian Government’s new media watchdog lost one of its members today, before the body has even begun to function. Snjezana Milivojevic told media that she was unable to work with the newly established Broadcast Council because it had undermined its authority at the outset by appointing the illegal procedure of appointing three of its members. Milivojevic had earlier moved that the Council not be formally constituted until a request had been sent to the Parliament to repeat the appointment procedure in the case of the three disputed councillors. Instead the Council, at its first meeting, opted to elect one of the disputed members, Nenad Cekic, as chairman, and inform the parliament that it regretted that correct legal procedures had not been followed. Milivojevic said that she firmly believed that the Council’s work must be done publicly, as defined by the law, and that this did not mean press releases of annual reports. Despite the legal requirements and Milivojevic’s objections, the first meeting was closed to the public. The editor of Radio Belgrade Rade Veljanovski, who chaired the working group which drafted the Broadcast Act said today that what he described as the intentionally negative influence of certain people in power had become obvious after the election of Nenad Cekic, one of the illegally appointed councillors, as chairman of the Council. Veljanovski also called on the Parliament to repeal what he described as the Public Information Act’s nonsensical decrees on the prevention of print media distribution. Independent Association of Serbian Journalists president Milica Lucic-Cavic questioned the ability of the Council to carry out the complex tasks ahead, given that Milivojevic, whom she described as the Council’s most qualified and respected media expert, had already resigned. She appealed to members of the Parliament to launch a review of its previous decisions on the Council. ANEM chairman Veran Matic, gave notice of a “frontal attack” on the situation, adding that media associations would make a formal proposal to the Serbian Parliament to annul the appointments of Cekic, Vladimir Cvetkovic and Goran Radenovic, all of whom had failed to meet the conditions for Council membership.