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Yerevan Press Club Weekly Newsletter - 06/18/2009

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  • Yerevan Press Club Weekly Newsletter - 06/18/2009

    YEREVAN PRESS CLUB WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

    JUNE 12-18, 2009

    HIGHLIGHTS:

    PERSPECTIVE
    THE UNACCOMPLISHED REFORM OR STRASBOURG IS HAPPY WITH US

    "ARTICLE 27: THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION" - NEW CYCLE ON "YERKIR
    MEDIA" TV

    SENTENCE UPHELD


    PERSPECTIVE
    THE UNACCOMPLISHED REFORM OR STRASBOURG IS HAPPY WITH US

    The ratification of legislative amendments on television and radio as signed
    by the RA President on May 20, 2009, marked the completion of the formation
    of Armenian broadcast legislation - a process that had lasted for more than
    12 years. One can state it responsibly that the practice of total control
    exercised by the power structures over the broadcast sphere received the
    complete legislative backing they wished so much, with the blessing of the
    Council of Europe experts and the parliamentary opposition.


    Why is it we speak about a 12-year process? Because in March 1997 the first
    version of the draft law on television and radio went through the first
    hearing at the parliament. Having been criticized then by the journalistic
    associations, including Yerevan Press Club, as well as the representatives
    of the Council of Europe, foreign experts, this version was revoked. The
    three-year work on the draft that ensued did resemble a lot the situation of
    the past year: YPC, Internews and their partners were invited to debates, we
    were asked for ideas and proposals, yet only those of them were taken into
    account that did not impede the main goal - to eliminate every chance for
    the independence of the broadcast regulating bodies, to keep the
    uncontrolled TV and radio companies out of air.

    Both at that stage and now the work on the drafts improved the appearance,
    yet the essence never changed. As a result, even with 50 TV channels
    available in the country, the Armenian public, political forces, experts,
    the TV viewers are extremely unhappy with what they see on the air. The lack
    of real pluralism, the violations of legal and ethical norms that receive no
    due response, the open manipulation of public opinion to the benefit of
    private interest, neglect of the cultural, education, information functions
    - these are the specifics of the present-day broadcasting, including the
    public service broadcasting.

    The list of these vices, due, among other things, to the ineffective
    legislative framework, was expanded in September 2008 to include an
    innovation with a hilarious justification - a ban on broadcast licensing
    competitions. Thus, for two years' time (and the authors of the idea obvious
    intend this period to become infinite) even the technical opportunity to get
    some competition in TV and radio industry is made impossible.

    A radical broadcasting reform was necessary to get rid from this bunch of
    problems, its first step being the improvement of the legislative framework.
    Still the new package of amendments that came into force has not eradicated
    any of the issues constantly raised by the media community of Armenia and
    international organizations.

    Firstly, the mechanisms prescribed by the amended legislation, by their
    definition cannot enhance the independence of the National Commission on
    Television and Radio (NCTR), the body that regulates the activities of TV
    and radio companies.

    Secondly, the amendments enforced do not in any way contribute to the real
    reform of the Public TV and Radio Company, its inclusion into the legal
    regulation field, to the enactments of its responsibility and public
    accountability principles. In other words, Armenia to this day does not have
    a true public service broadcaster, the establishment of which was assumed as
    a commitment of the country to the Council of Europe.

    Thirdly, the adopted package of draft laws does not solve the task of
    forming legal conditions for holding impartial and transparent broadcast
    licensing competitions. It does not contain any guarantees against the
    arbitrary decisions of the National Commission and does not call for a
    justification to be given by the members for the selection made.

    Fourthly and finally, despite the growing and obvious weakness of arguments
    to support the moratorium on frequency distribution under an invented
    pretext of broadcast digitalization, the provision on freezing the
    competitions remains intact. This cannot be interpreted otherwise than as
    the reluctance of authorities to allow on air any broadcaster out of their
    political control, unreadiness to draw conclusions from the judgment of the
    European Court of Human Rights upon the suit of "Meltex" LLC (the founder of
    "A1+" TV company) of June 17, 2008, and to implement the Resolution 1620
    (2008) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

    The legislative amendments that do not entail the basic solution of the
    issues above can only be seen as cosmetic, as an imitation of reforms that
    do not in any way contribute to the improvement of the situation on the TV
    and radio air of Armenia. The coverage of municipal elections in Yerevan,
    held on May 31, 2009, confirmed that the main negative trends of the
    broadcasting are still in place, that the choir of TV voices obeys the will
    of one single conductor. Whatever the TV journalists did during this period
    - whether negative or positive - was prescribed from "above". And if this
    time the Yerevan Press Club monitoring recorded a certain improvement in the
    coverage, as compared to the presidential elections of 2008, this does not
    in any way mean that in future the prescription from "above" will not change
    and the behavior pattern of broadcast media would not again deteriorate to
    the level of 2008 or even below than that.

    The adoption of the new draft law package could have been viewed more
    calmly; after all, not everything is lost and the law can always be amended.
    Yet this is the very problem, there are no more incentives or commitments
    for the Armenian MPs to address the broadcasting legislation, and hardly any
    will come up in the nearest future. Today they are entitled to state that
    the long-lasting process of harmonizing this part of the legislation with
    the Constitution, amended in 2005, is more or less complete. The
    media-related provisions of the Main Law, strongly protested by the
    journalistic association at the time of their developments, did fulfill
    their mission, as intended by the authors: they became the convenient
    justification to limit the possibilities for forming the truly independent
    broadcast regulatory bodies. It did take the lawmakers of today a certain
    demagogical effort in interpreting the constitutional provisions to fully
    exclude the chance for having independent regulation. However, the amended
    Constitution is no longer a pretext to address the broadcast legislation,
    and the chances that the Government or the parliament will today revisit the
    principal issued of TV and radio regulation are nil today.

    Another factor that induced the Armenian authorities to occasionally
    remember the legislative regulation of broadcasting were the commitments to
    the Council of Europe and the criticism coming from international
    organizations. However the authors of the new package of amendments managed
    to get the assessment from the Council of Europe expert that they have every
    reason to treat as positive. Therefore, the task can be considered as
    fulfilled and for the first time in the 12-year history of the Armenian
    broadcast law the members of Armenian parliament are free from their
    commitment to the CoE partners to think about new changes. Moreover, the
    positive assessment of the Council of Europe expert today plays the role of
    a certain shield from the criticism of other international and local
    organizations: Strasbourg is happy with us; the rest is of little
    importance!

    The content of the assessment itself raises a number of issues, voiced, in
    particular, in the statement of journalistic organizations of April 9, 2009.
    The Council of Europe expert that reviewed the package of the draft laws on
    regulating the broadcasting, did not take into account the recommendations
    made in the PACE Resolutions 1532 (2007), 1609 (2008), 1620 (2008) and 1643
    (2009). Referring to Armenia's implementation of its commitments to the CoE
    and the functioning of democratic institutions in the country, these
    Resolutions define the current reform agenda, also in media. The
    recommendations raise the problems of independence of the regulatory body,
    the transparency of broadcast licensing competitions, the possible
    participation of "A1+" TV company in them, the moratorium on frequency
    distribution. While considering the package of the drafts without taking
    into account the four last PACE recommendations on Armenia, the Council of
    Europe expert, on the one hand, bypassed some questionable clauses of the
    legislation in force (firstly, the introduced ban on the frequency
    distribution), on the other, she assessed a whole range of legislative
    innovations out of the context of existing problems in the recent practice
    (lack of transparency and impartiality of broadcast licensing competitions,
    lack of any forms of accountability of the Public TV and Radio Company to
    the society, etc.).

    The expert welcomes the amendments to Article 50 of the RA Law "On
    Television and Radio" that stipulates the provision of "full justification"
    of competition participants that were refused a license, referring to the
    appropriate clause in the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of
    June 17, 2008 on "A1+" case. Yet in essence nothing new in terms of
    justifying the refusal of the license is proposed by the new draft, there
    are still no mechanisms top define the selection criteria for NCTR members.


    One could quote many examples of the insufficiently profound analysis of the
    draft law package by the CoE expert. Yet the problem lies not in the
    particulars, but in the method through which the media legislation is formed
    in Armenia, and the role of international expert assessment in the process.
    Despite the fact that a working group has been established at the
    specialized Standing Committee of the RA National Assembly, involving local
    experts, the recent drafts were only discussed by this group twice, and only
    on the stages when the discussions could not have any significant influence
    on the content of the drafts. The first debate centered on general issues
    and was purely formal in nature, and the second one was summoned a few days
    before the second hearing of the package, when the authors were already
    adamant in their approach. In between international experts met and
    discussed the drafts only with the MPs interested in their advancement.
    Objections, comment, explanations of the problems regarding the practical
    implementation of a certain clause that representatives of Armenian media
    community could share, public debates are of no interest to anyone any more.
    Such a closed process of legislation formation can bear no other fruit than
    what we have today. In other words, the civil society institutes are deprive
    of any real chance to influence the principal decision-making in the
    legislation.

    Participation in such imitations, membership in various boards and groups
    set up for the sake of appearances only has always been contrary to the
    principles of Yerevan Press Club, and, as it has already been stated,
    representatives of our organization will no longer participate in the
    working group on media legislation at the RA NA Standing Committee on
    Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Issues. This decision can only
    be reconsidered in case of a dramatic change in the attitude that the
    Armenian MPs have to lawmaking.

    Meanwhile, we so far observe a reverse process. Another proof of that is one
    of the earliest efforts to institutionalize the Public Council, formed
    recently by presidential decree, in the renewed broadcast legislation.
    Having given this structure, seen as nothing more but a showoff substitute
    for the civil society, a role in forming the broadcast regulatory bodies,
    the Armenian legislators made another step towards replacing the true
    democratic processes by the imitation.

    Finally, the proactive and principled stance of the opposition - yet another
    factor (along with the political will of the authorities, competent
    involvement of international organizations, attention to the proposals of
    local NGOs and expert community) that could contribute to the healthy and
    constructive lawmaking, based on the competition of ideas and approaches -
    failed to work in the case of broadcast legislation amendments enforced in
    May 2009, either. How does the consensus of "Heritage" faction with the
    ruling coalition on the issue go hand in hand with its criticism of the
    situation in broadcasting and demands to get "A1+" TV company back on the
    air, remains a mystery.

    The new opportunity to break down the blockade of Armenian air should
    apparently be expected only when those who could but did not wish to display
    principles at this stage of legislative reforms face new problems in
    broadcasting. And these, judging from the attitude towards the freedom of
    expression issues in Armenia, will hardly take long in coming...

    Boris NAVASARDIAN


    "ARTICLE 27: THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION" - NEW CYCLE ON "YERKIR
    MEDIA" TV

    On June 13 the first program of the cycle "Article 27: the Right to Freedom
    of Expression" went on the air of "Yerkir Media" TV company. The new cycle
    is produced by Eurasia Partnership Foundation under a project, supported by
    British Embassy in Armenia and USAID. The discussion of the talk-show
    participants is preceded by a documentary. The films, shot by Armenian or
    foreign directors, deal with different dimensions of freedom of expression.
    The program host is Boris Navasardian, President of Yerevan Press Club.

    The cycle "Article 27: the Right to Freedom of Expression" is aired on
    "Yerkir Media" every Saturday at 16.45 (rerun on Mondays at 15.00). The
    talk-show is also broadcast by a number of regional companies, joined into
    "Hamaspyur" TV network.

    SENTENCE UPHELD

    On June 15 the RA Criminal Court of Appeal upheld the sentence, passed by
    court of general jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash communities of
    Yerevan on April 17, 2009 on the case of free-lance journalist Gagik
    Shamshian, returned guilty by Part 3 of Article 343 of RA Criminal Code
    ("Disrespect to Court"). As it has been reported, Gagik Shamshian was
    sentenced to a fine in the amount of 350,000 AMD, or about $ 950 (see YPC
    Weekly Newsletter, 17-23 April, 2009).


    When reprinting or using the information above, reference to the Yerevan
    Press Club is required.

    You are welcome to send any comment and feedback about the Newsletter to:
    [email protected]

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    this mailing list, please send a message to: [email protected]

    Editor of YPC Newsletter - Elina POGHOSBEKIAN
    _____________________________________ _______
    Yerevan Press Club
    9B, Ghazar Parpetsi str.
    0002, Yerevan, Armenia
    Tel.: (+ 374 10) 53 00 67; 53 35 41; 53 76 62
    Fax: (+374 10) 53 56 61
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Web Site: www.ypc.am

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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