Belarusian Draft Law "On Mass Media" Adopted after the 2nd Reading (updated)
The Chamber of Representatives at the National Assembly of Belarus has
adopted the Law «Om Mass Media» after the 2nd reading. 96 MPs
supported the bill and 2 parliamentarians voted against it, the
The Head of Committee on Human Rights, National Relations and Mass
MediaYury Kulakouski told that a range of proposals from the «SB.
Belarus Today» («The Soviet Byelorussia»), «The Economic Newspaper»,
the Belarusian Association of Journalists and the OSCE
Representative’s on Media Freedom Office had been included in the
final version of the draft law.
Mr. Kulakouski mentioned separate amendments, included in the draft
bill before the 2nd reading.
In particular, he stated about the BAJ proposal regarding the work of
correspondents' outlets.
These are regarded as departments of legal entities instead of
representations, as it was outlined in the initial version of the
draft law, the Radio «Liberty» reports.
Certain amendments were included in the legal norm about
mass media organizations had to get officially
changing the legal address. Presently, it will be enough to tell about
the address change to the registering authority.
The MPs supported the BAJ proposal to set the maximum term of three
months for solving conflicts between media outlets and the state
authorities. The term wasn’t stipulated before at all.
Following a proposal from the OSCE Office in Minsk, it has been noted
in the last version of the draft bill that media outlets do not
account for the information that gets broadcast in live programs, the
Radio «Liberty» reports.
A Coordination Board on the Media with representatives of state
institutions, public associations and media outlets will be founded,
Y. Kulakouski stressed in his interview to the
Agency. Provisions on the Board’s activity will be determined by the
Council of Ministers of Belarus (instead of the Ministry of
Information, as it was suggested before).
A legal norm on banning violations of «generally accepted language
norms» has been excluded from the document after the 2nd reading, «as
no norms of the kind exist», Y. Kulakouski emphasized. A demand on
barring the use of unquotable words and expressions has been included
in the bill instead.
Yury Kulakouski assured the public that «the draft law regulates the
activity of Internet analogues of mass media only». «They have to
correspond to the printed versions. Only that they don’t have to get
officially
However, the MP failed to explain to journalists how to reach full
correspondence of information, presented in the printed/broadcast
media and their Internet versions, the
reports.
Surprisingly, specialists from the National Center for Legislation and Legal Studies at the Presidential Administration didn't find any inaccuracies and produced no remarks or amendments to the text of the draft law, directed to them for consideration by the Belarusian MPs on June 20, 2008, as Ihar Halubitski, the Head of Constitutional Legislation Center's Department noted.
He told to the BAJ Press Service that the urgent legal examination of the draft bill was a compulsory requirement only. "It happens in cases, when the Council of Ministers submits a law for consideration and simultaneously recommends the term for its legal examination. It is obvious that in this case no generally accepted terms of a fortnight or even a month wouldn't suit", Ihar Halubitski said.
