Parliament to Discuss Draft Amendments to Georgian Law on Broadcasting

Tata Kachkachishvili, Kutaisi, www.media.ge

Ani Mirotadze of the parliamentary majority believes that the Parliament, at its earliest, should adopt the law on public broadcaster: “The majority is working on the draft bill and it’s essential to adopt the law ASAP to prevent the channel from similar situations, political interference, financial machinations and ultimately we’ll get the broadcaster as it is supposed to be,” said Ani Mirotadze, former journalist.

 “The public broadcaster is facing crisis, the channel is missing the Director General and the decision issued by the Board could have been prepared in a better way, on the other hand I would like to stress that the public broadcaster should stay beyond politics and political segment should not be present in its management,” said Irakli Chikovani chairman of the parliamentary faction Georgian Dream – Free Democrats. Like the parliamentary majority Levan Bezhashvili of the parliamentary minority, deputy chairman of the United National Movement faction considers meddling into GPB activities as inexpedient: “I do believe that the involvement of political parties, parliament and political institutions into the GPB and media activities should be minor and should not be limited to legislative activities. Therefore it’s essential to rule out any kind of interference, either from opposition or governmental, so that the public broadcaster could have a right to independent operation.”

The representatives of the parliamentary majority think in order to put ongoing processes right the draft bill on amendments and additions to the Georgian Law on Broadcasting need to be examined. The discussion on the draft bill developed by a group of media experts is scheduled to be held at several parliamentary committees in the nearest future. Ahead of the launch of the discussion on March 7 the authors of the draft bill, together with the members of the parliamentary majority and minority, as well as the representatives Media Advocacy Coalition, 12 NGOs and media outlets will hold a discussion at the parliament building. The meeting will be organized by the parliamentary committee for education, science and culture. The aforesaid committee is the author of legislative initiative over amendments and additions to be made to the Georgian Law on Broadcasting. According to Zviad Koridze, co-author of the draft bill the discussion will be held at the parliament over the draft bill as a mechanism to improve the situation. The draft bill implies a reform to be carried out through two phases: perfection of the public broadcaster itself as well as its management mechanism, as well as the formation of Adjara TV-Radio company into public broadcaster so that this TV-radio company could strictly perform its function. The draft bill also implies Must-Carry operation and financial transparency of electronic media