"Georgian Media Club" Concerns

"Georgian Media Club" Protests against the Process of Appointing the Members of the Supervising Council of the Public Broadcasting Television

On June 3, 2005 the Georgian parliament elected three members of the Supervising Council of the Public Broadcasting Television. Levan Tarkhnishvili, Mamuka Kherkheulidze and Rusudan Sebiskveradze were approved on the position on the Members of the Council.

Despite the huge interest towards development of the Public Broadcasting Television, the structure of it has already been distorted. On April 22, Georgian parliament approved the 6 members (to remind, the MPs were given the list of 9 candidates instead of 18). In addition to that, the government yet did not consider it important to elect the other three members of the Council according to the rules envisaged by the law.

The president of Georgia did not announce another contest (as envisaged by the law). He presented again the previous candidates (failed on April 22) to the legislative body of the country.

It’s notable that the parliament did not discuss the candidates and elected them at once.

It’s dubious as well that the election of the members of the Supervising Council was coincided with the election of CEC members. It means that the main attention of the society was focused on that topic.

Despite the fact that the law on Broadcasting does not prohibit to present the same candidate again, is it righteous to re-present the failed candidate once more. Will this person have the mandate of credibility by the side of Society? There are two such persons in the Supervising Council – Mamuka Kherkheulidze and Levan Tarkhnishvili.

And one more detail, seven persons from the list distributed among the MPs on April 21 have coincided with the members of the Council.

Georgian media Club expresses concern on the fact that Authority is trying to distort process of establishing Public Broadcasting Television. In such case the audience might face the same first channel with different name.

Georgian media Club