Two years of ado about nothing

The new Law on Media and the Law on Public Broadcasting are a complete disappointment, and the provisions on the protection of sources of information, the future Fund for Media Pluralism, the election and independence in the work of the members of the Radio and Television Council of Montenegro, and the fact that due journalistic attention has not been defined are disputed. ...

This was assessed for "Vijesti" by media workers, as well as leaders of the civil sector. The international organization Reporters Without Borders also called yesterday on President Milo Đukanović not to sign the Media Act. From that organization, they assessed that the journalist's obligation to reveal the source, at the request of the state prosecutor, would be a serious violation of the confidentiality of the journalist's source.

"Without this, the vital role of journalists in a democratic society is threatened and there is a risk that sources will be deterred from sharing information of public interest with the media. Even in times of crisis, journalists must be able to communicate with their sources, but in a confidential manner," Pavol Szalai, head of the department for the European Union and the Balkans, told Radio Free Europe (RSE).

The spokeswoman for the European Commission (EC) Ana Pisonero announced that "the protection of journalistic sources is crucial for the freedom of the media", and that their disclosure "represents a serious interference with the freedom of expression". She expects that this new provision of the Law will be applied in accordance with international and European standards and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights.

The Minister of Culture, Aleksandar Bogdanović, boasted two days ago in the Assembly that this department, also responsible for the media, had a wide range of consultations with domestic and international interested public. The laws were worked on for almost two years, so that they would reach the parliamentary procedure at the end of 2019. They were adopted two nights ago by the votes of the ruling coalition.

Protection of sources - an attack on investigative journalism

Editor-in-Chief of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIN-CG) Slavoljub Šćekić warns that the way in which the journalist's right to protect his source is limited, if the prosecution requests it, and allegedly for the protection of national security and health, can produce two consequences.

"First, it damages investigative journalism and can discourage potential sources. Another consequence is the possible consequences that the journalist will have if he does not accept the prosecution's request to reveal the source and adhere to the code of confidentiality. This law does not specify a penal measure for that, which means that the provisions of the Criminal Code or the Criminal Procedure Law are applied. Thus, in the best case scenario, the journalist could serve two months in prison, as was the case with MP Nebojša Medojević, when he did not want to reveal his source. Or something even worse. Insisting on this provision has no basis in domestic practice, so there was no reason for it.

The assistant editor-in-chief of "Dana", who is also the president of the Commission for Monitoring Investigations of Attacks on Journalists, Nikola Marković, believes that it is an attack on investigative journalism, but he believes that it is a synchronized action to limit access to information.

"The problem is that the CC defines that disclosure of an official secret is also considered to be a threat to the security of the state. So now the prosecutor can ask and prosecute the journalist to give him a source if we disclose, for example, a document that was declared classified internally, and which talks, for example, about how certain officials got apartments or who the state gave money to in the pre-election campaign. period. That this is not a coincidence, but a synchronized action by the regime, is indicated by the fact that the government first amended the Data Secrecy Law, so now everything alive to the point of banality is declared a secret, and now the Media Law forces journalists to reveal their sources if, nevertheless, get hold of those documents and publish them. The clear goal is to prevent any investigative text that talks about abuses of power and corruption," says Marković.

The executive director of the Action for Human Rights (HRA) Tea Gorjanc-Prelević is not satisfied with this solution either: "Although the obligation to publish the sources of information of journalists was waived in order to detect criminal acts, the source protection system still remained inconsistent with international standards and leaves room for abuses ".

Fund for media pluralism - a carrot on a stick

The long-announced 'package of media laws' is, unfortunately, a big disappointment because there is clearly no political will to regulate the media market, according to the executive director of "Vijesti", Marijana Kadić-Bojanić.

"And without a regular market there is not even a healthy 'match' that should be based on professional standards and that the media for readers and viewers as well as for advertisers - 'fight' with accurate, fast and verified information, and not to live on money from the state and parastatal funds. The fund for media pluralism was supposed to be a short-term, but strong help for professional media to 'survive' until the moment when the institutions of the system, with the help of a good law, will finally regulate the media market and when everyone will be able to live from their work, i.e. readership and viewership. This way, money from the Fund will be just a 'carrot on a stick' waved by the Ministry of Culture. "Citizens, from the common coffers, will pay even more expensively than before, obedient media without their will, and those they trust and who inform them will continue to be condemned to mere survival," she said.

And the executive director of the Media Association of Southeast Europe (MAJE) Vuk Maraš believes that the Institute of the Fund is senseless, due to its extremely low value, which clearly "shows the Government's intentions to continue with the collapse of the media market and the destruction of free media, which generate the only income in such an utterly devastated market ".

"Instead of leaving self-regulation to the media, the Government, through amendments, 'drafted' the Media Council for Self-Regulation, as the only collective self-regulatory body that can generate income from the Fund, even though it is an organization that does not have a single independent media in its composition. All this, as well as many other shortcomings in the laws, show that the alleged inclusivity of the Government during the drafting of laws, both through working groups and through the "Alliance for Europe" and the parliamentary debate, is a failed pre-election trick, which showed that the Government, unfortunately, is not the solution. , but the problem of the Montenegrin independent media scene", Maras said.

Self-regulation from the state budget is government regulation

The executive director of the Center for Civic Education (CEO) Daliborka Uljarević states that this NGO will give a detailed review of both legal texts when it sees the final versions, because a lot of amendments have been intervened: "It is fair to say that a significant part of the proposals that we sent within the initiative of the Alliance adopted for Europe".

"Among the most important novelties of the Law on Media, which are the product of our advocacy, I would highlight the regulation of the transparency of media financing from public funds. It was the discretionary funding of the media that led to 'soft' censorship and the collapse of professional standards. We are witnessing the growing negative impact of comments, and this will now, at our insistence, be regulated and the founders of the portal will have to remove comments with illegal content within 60 minutes of learning or receiving the report of another, which could be the beginning of the decontamination of public discourse. It is bad that this Law foresees budgetary financing of self-regulation. It's wrong because you can't pay someone to be ethical, but you can make the situation worse by funding bad practices," she said.

And Šćekić says that the scandalous solution is the government's persistent effort to finance self-regulation of the media from the future Fund: "There is no self-regulation if someone else is paying for it besides the media themselves. Everything else is regulation: who gives money, wants to ask. The government has already clearly stated what it wants with the bill. Although formally in one article it listed both internal and external self-regulatory bodies as equal forms, in the following, when distributing money from this fund, it gave preference to the media that are members of the external body. One can only imagine what else will arise, after this initial discrimination, when the Government forms bodies for the distribution of money that will then tailor the rules. Another clear intention is for the Government to solve in this way the problem of infidelity, media servants who have been trying to influence the public through similar forms of bodies for a long time and demonize professional media that resist control."

Nikola Marković warns that the article that stipulated that the media must adhere to the Code of Journalists was removed from the Law: "That's why the government's stories that this law has made progress in the field of self-regulation sound hypocritical. If the regime really cared about professional journalism, it would have included in the Law a provision that public administration bodies and companies majority-owned by the state cannot advertise in media that do not respect the journalists' code. The suspicion remains that all this was done in order to enable the smooth work of tabloids and journalists, because knowing this government, I would not be surprised if they renewed their old love with 'Pink' and 'Informer'."

(Lack of) independence of the RTCG Council

Media Center Director Goran Đurović reminds that the process of drafting the new Law on Public Broadcasters began with the announcement and explanation of the Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Pažin that the key goal is to increase the independence of the RTCG Council by law. "The independence of the RTCG Council increases when the possibility of influence of political parties on the election of members of this body is reduced. The new law increased the influence of political parties on the election of RTCG Council members, while at the same time the possibility of judicial protection in the process of appointing and dismissing Council members was completely abolished. The new Law opened up the possibility for Council members to be dismissed on the basis of other regulations, and not exclusively on the basis of the Law on RTCG and for the reasons prescribed by this law. The Ministry led this process from the very beginning in an inappropriate way, so when forming the working group for the drafting of this regulation, by an illegal decision, it allowed the participation of representatives of NGOs without any references in this area, so that during the process of adopting the Law, they would indicate the unique position of the working group in the drafting of this regulation", said Đurović.

And Uljarević believes that with the Law on Public Broadcasters, "unfortunately, the narrow party interest trampled the public interest".

"With that Law, in addition to a series of useful proposals that were adopted from what we together with the Media Center stood for, construction errors were made that relate to the RTCG Council. There is no real public service while the RTCG Council is controlled, and the citizens are now condemned to this Council, which brought the RTCG to the lowest branches, for at least nine more months, noting that the Law enabled the next composition of the Council to be like that or even worse," she concluded. is she.

And Gorjanc-Prelević believes that the Law does not provide for the election of members of the RTCG Council, which will guarantee their independence and impartiality: "And we are particularly disappointed, because despite all the attention of the domestic and international community to the case of the dismissal of Council members (Goran) Đurović and (Nikola) Vukčević , who have been on trial for this reason for two years, it is not prescribed that judicial protection in case of non-election or dismissal must be urgent."

She also warns that the Law on Media does not define the term that uses due journalistic attention, nor does it provide the grounds for excluding journalists from responsibility in accordance with the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. "The protection of the right to privacy is completely neglected, it is a value that is obviously not adhered to in Montenegro, even though it is a basic human right. The right to correction and response of a deceased person and one who is incapable of taking care of their own interests is also unregulated...", stressed Gorjanc-Prelević.