Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006Jakubovic, an expert for media regulatory bodies and director of the centerfor strategy and analysis of the Polish National Broadcasting Council 546 .Jakubovic stressed in his report that the process of decision-making was fullof fundamental weaknesses and that there is serious concern whether theRRA Council was guided by the principle of public interest in the processof decision-making when granting frequencies 547 .The Council of Europe pointed out that media standards have beenthreatened and that it is particularly worrisome that there was no publicdebate on this law 548 . The European Commission (EC) sent a letter tothe parliament speaker to warn that no urgent procedure without a publicdebate is allowed for this kind of matter and that enlargement of discretionjurisdictions of the RRA Council through amendments to the Law isdangerous 549 .The Association of Independent Electronic Media expressed bitterness notonly that the repeated changes to the broadcasting law were made withouta public debate, but also because of stronger government control over theRRA Council 550 . The Serbian Independent Association of Journalists, whichwas also opposed to this law, stated in a press release that with the adoptionof this law “the opinions of the President of the Republic, domestic expertpublic, as well as the top OSCE and EC officials in Serbia were arrogantlyignored.” 551The criticisms to the amendments to the law refer primarily to the factthat the agency was on the one hand placed under government control asthe government is to give consent to RRA’s financial plan instead of theAssembly. This solution directly causes that the RRA Council is dependanton the government, which may pressure the agency at any time by notgiving consent to its financial plan. On the other hand, the RRA was giveneven wider discretion jurisdictions on issues of regulation over the media,issuance of licenses and closing-down of stations that work without alicense.546 Ibid547 Ibid548 EC worried about broadcasting, B92, August 28 th , 2006, webpage: http://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy=2006&mm=08&dd=28&nav_category=11&nav_id=209654&fs=1#, visited on November 25 th , 2006549 Ibid550 ANEM’s statement dated September 29 th , 2006, available at: http://www.anem.org.yu/anemnews/list.jsp?category=stat&language=sr&datey=2006&datem=09&dated=29&id=7400#id7400, visited on November 25 th ,2006551 What will happen with broadcasting, B92, September 30 th , 2006, webpage: http://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy=2006&mm=09&dd=30&nav_category=11&nav_id=213706&fs=1#,visited on November 25 th ,2006109