The Media Center submitted the initiative for the implementation of the Law on Audiovisual Media Services to the President of the Assembly Andrija Mandić and the President of the Administrative Board Jelena Nedović.
The Media Center reminded the President of the Assembly and the Administrative Committee that, based on the new Law on Audiovisual Media Services, they are obliged to start and complete the process of electing new members of the Council of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services.
"The obligation of the Administrative Board is to, based on paragraph 4 of Article 149 of the law, prepare a form in which non-governmental organizations, as authorized proposers for members of the Council of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services, submit work reports for the previous three years. Namely, the Administrative Board is competent to prepare a form in which the data of interested NGOs is submitted about their projects, activities and budgets, so that the procedure for verifying the fulfillment of the conditions for authorized NGO proponents can be carried out in a legal manner Article 153 is initiated by the President of the Parliament of Montenegro," reads the statement signed by the director of the Media Center, Goran Đurović.
It is added that Article 153 of the new Law on Audiovisual Media Services stipulates that "the procedure for appointing a member of the Council of the Agency is initiated by the President of the Assembly by publishing a public invitation to authorized proposers, no later than six months before the expiration of the mandate of the member of the Council of the Agency".
"The mandate of Milan Radović, a member of the Council of the Agency from the ranks of NGOs, expires in December of this year, so the deadline of 6 months stipulated by the law has already been exceeded. If the new law is to be respected, then the public call for the appointment of a member of the Council of the Agency had to be announced in July of this year We believe that there was time for the Administrative Board and the President of the Parliament of Montenegro to fulfill their legal obligations, as the Assembly worked in July and August draft form for submission of NGO reports to the committee".
It is emphasized that if the procedure is not started immediately, there is a possibility that negotiation chapter 10 (information society and media) will not be closed in December.
"Also, if the procedure for appointing a new member of the Council of the Agency is not started immediately, there is room for suspicion that there are political reasons for violating the law. We hope that the Administrative Board and then the President of the Assembly will fulfill their legal obligations as soon as possible in order to start the procedure for appointing a new member of the Council of the Agency", concludes Đurović's statement.
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