Non-governmental organizations - Media Center, Center for Investigative Reporting-CIN, Human Rights Action (HRA), Media Institute of Montenegro (IMCG) and Center for Civic Education (CCE) - today sent a request to the Speaker of the Parliament Andrija Mandić, requesting a reasoned explanation regarding the cancellation of the public call for the appointment of two members of the Council of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services.
They remind that Mandić sent a public invitation to non-governmental organizations in the field of media to appoint one member of the Council, as well as an invitation to the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU) and the Montenegrin PEN Center to appoint one member of the Council, on December 10, 2024. The deadline for submitting documentation was 45 days and expired on January 24 of this year. However, they point out that on the last day of the deadline, Mandić "cancelled the invitation for publicly unknown reasons."
The public call requested extensive documentation from non-governmental organizations to prove their work in the media field in the previous three years.
The NGO group said that such a last-minute decision undermines trust in democratic governance and respect for the rule of law.
"The Law on Audiovisual Media Services, as well as the remaining two media laws, after three years of preparation, were adopted in June 2024, as part of the so-called IBAR law, and their adoption and implementation were one of the conditions for obtaining a positive IBAR. In addition, the adoption of media laws (and in particular the Law on Audiovisual Media Services) was also one of the conditions for fulfilling the final benchmarks for the temporary closure of Chapter 10 - Information Society and Media). The second final benchmark related to Chapter 10 relates to the functional and independent operation of the regulator in the field of electronic media, namely the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services," the joint statement reads.
"We would like to remind you that it was precisely Mandić's (in)action that delayed the implementation of the Law on Audiovisual Media Services, as he announced the public call with almost six months of delay, after the insistence of the Delegation of the European Union. The consequence of his actions, as well as the actions of the Administrative Board, is the situation in which today the Agency Council has three out of a total of five members, who must all be present at all sessions and all vote in the same way in order for decisions to be made, because otherwise the Agency cannot exercise its legal powers. It will take at least two months to implement the new procedure for appointing two members of the Agency Council, i.e. the Agency will not be functional during that period," the NGOs add.
They also say that the recently temporarily closed Chapter 10 could be reopened if the obstruction of the implementation of media laws continues. "The attitude towards the implementation of laws and the professionalization of institutions is the attitude towards accession to the European Union, and this is one example that shows who the veto players in this process are."
They say that "politically motivated engineering, after learning that by appointing credible representatives of NGOs and CANU or the Montenegrin PEN Center, political influence is lost" over the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services, is not a valid way of implementing the law.
"We believe that this will be adequately recognized by the interested domestic and international public," reads the statement signed by: Goran Đurović (Media Center), Milka Tadić Mijović, (CIN-CG), Tea Gorjanc Prelević (HRA), Olivera Nikolić (IMCG) and Daliborka Uljarević (CCE).
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