On February 26 in a regular session of the RA National Assembly the package
of amendments to the RA laws “On Television and Radio”, “Statutes of the RA
National Assembly”, “Statutes of the RA National Commission on Television and
Radio”, “On State Duty” was adopted in the first hearing. As it has been
reported, the document was included in the agenda of the previous parliamentary
session and became a subject to criticism by a number of journalist
organizations. In the statement released on February 3 by Yerevan Press Club,
Internews Media Support NGO, Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, and
Media Diversity Institute-Armenia, the amendments to the broadcast legislation
were qualified as “nonsense” to say the least: “The quality of that document has
exceeded our worst expectations: the number of lexical, logical and legal lapses
has made it useless to subject it to detailed analysis.” First of all, the
statement signatories pointed at the “crude substitution of concepts”: instead
of the legislative guarantees of social-political diversity at the Council of
Public Television and Radio Company, the drafters suggest professional
diversity. Since the very first days of the adoption of the Broadcast Law in
2000, it has been talked about the need for such guarantees. “Secondly, the
drafters have invented an oath for the members of the Council, as well as the
National Commission on Television and Radio, without devising any real
guarantees for the independence of those bodies, the necessity of which is being
constantly talked about. The demand to take an oath of devotion to civil
society, freedom of information, and other lofty principles, in the absence of
reliable mechanisms contributing to independence, pluralism and accountability
to the society, only increases concentration of hypocrisy that is already a
serious problem in our public life”, the statement of four journalistic
associations says. The associations have noted that the two above-mentioned
crucial shortcomings of the legislative package are but a small part of
unacceptable provisions and absurdities contained in it. The statement
signatories urged the deputies of the RA National Assembly “to quickly forget
the package proposed for discussion for the current four-day session, return to
one of its previous versions and work at the fundamental revision of the
document, taking into account the numerous remarks and suggestions” of both
local and international experts (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, January 30 -
February 5, 2009).



Meanwhile, the deputies unanimously voted for the package of amendments,
successfully passing it in the first hearing. In the course of the legislative
package discussion, the Head of the NA Standing Commission on Science,
Education, Youth Issues and Sport Armen Ashotian announced that after the
document is adopted at the first hearing it will be presented to the Venice
Commission for experts’ assessment. In that case why did the amendments have to
be adopted to be sent for expert assessment only afterwards?! The draft on the
amendments to the RA Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations”
was also on the agenda, and it was also criticized. It was decided to send it to
the same Venice Commission before presenting the draft for parliament debates.
What prevented the deputies from doing the same thing in the case of the
broadcast legislation, which is no less important?! Especially, since the
journalistic associations have been insisting on the need of fundamental reforms
of the broadcast legislation for whole nine years. Doesn’t this present yet
another proof of full absence of interest in the improvement of the broadcast
sphere? In fact, here we are witnessing just imitation of such reforms, and this
time it is quite unprofessional, having only one aim - to retain the control
over broadcasting.