In a new call for the appointment of two members of the Council of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services, which was announced yesterday by the President of the Parliament Andrija Mandic, there is only one change - there is no mention of the point of the law that generally defines that candidates for members of the council for human rights and freedoms can be non-governmental organizations that deal with this.
Mandić announced a call for NGOs to nominate one member of the Council of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services in the field of media, as well as for the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Montenegrin PEN Center, also for the nomination of one member, after canceling the previous one last week, allegedly due to a technical error.
On Friday, when the 45-day deadline for applications was expiring, Mandić announced on the social network X that he had withdrawn the public call after the Administrative Committee of the Assembly informed him that the advertisement contained a technical error, which was "pointed out to the Committee by the non-governmental sector."
Mandić withdrew the invitation at the request of the NGO Forum Progres, because the explanation cited articles of the law that define the general conditions under which NGOs can nominate candidates.
Bojana Jokić from the Progress Forum sent an initiative to Mandić and the President of the Administrative Committee on January 22nd Jelena Nedovic (PES) in which it stated that the invitation contained a technical error "which may call into question the success of the selection in question", and the selection decision could be challenged in court.
She recalled that the mandate of the member of the Agency Council who was elected from among authorized proposers from NGOs in the field of media has expired and believes that the invitation should "specify that only authorized proposers from NGOs in the field of media have the right to propose", although this is clearly stated in the title of the invitation.
DON'T MISS IT
The new call also states in the title that it refers to NGOs in the field of media, and the change is in the part of the conditions that they need to meet in order to be candidates' proposers.
The first condition is that the NGO, in its founding act and statute, as its main goals and tasks, "has issues from the area referred to in Article 148, paragraph 1, item 3 of the Law on Audiovisual Media Services and has continuously dealt with these issues in the previous three years prior to the publication of the public call for nominations"...
Article 148, point three states: "non-governmental organizations in the field of media, one member."
The canceled invitation of December 10th also cited point 2, paragraph 1, Article 148 of the Law on Audiovisual Media Services, which states: "non-governmental organizations dealing with the protection of human rights and freedoms, one member."
They applied for the cancelled competition Dusko Vukovic, president of the Media Center Assembly and a long-time journalist and media analyst, who was supported by 14 NGOs with documentation submitted on January 24. NGO Linija supported the president of the Cetinje Journalists Association and former member of the RTCG council Nikola Vujanović application dated January 19. The Montenegrin PEN Center, in its application dated January 23, proposed Jelena Šušanj, assistant professor at the Faculty of Montenegrin Language and Literature. B. Ma.
Sattler's NGO Group
A group of NGOs accused Mandić of obstructing the implementation of the Law on Audiovisual Media Services in the Parliament of Montenegro and blocking the work of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services (AMU) and submitted information on this to the Head of the EU Delegation in Podgorica, Johan Sattler.
The Media Center, the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIN-CG), the Human Rights Action (HRA), the Media Institute of Montenegro (IMCG), the Center for Civic Education (CCE), the Association of Professional Journalists of Montenegro, the Media Union of Montenegro and the Montenegrin PEN Center stated in a joint statement that there was no confusion, "but it seems that some planned candidates failed to gain credible support and dropped out, which further led to open politically motivated obstruction of the process."
According to information from Vijesti, support and documentation for the candidacy application was also collected by Milan Radović, a recent member of the AMU Council, a long-time member of the RTCG Council and program director of the Civic Alliance.
"Vijesti" learned that he sought and received support from at least three Montenegrin non-governmental organizations.
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