ZAGREB, March 3 (Hina) - Under recently moved amendments to the public media law, in the future the owners of Croatia's media should be known to the public. Quoting Council of Europe recommendations to the effect that the ownership
and business of the media must be known to the public to prevent monopoly, the sponsor of the amendments, the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS), believes the current law's provisions enable the real owners of the media to avoid reporting ownership. HSLS has suggested that all media should submit to the competent state body by Jan. 31 each year data on the company and its premises, namely the names and places of residence of people with ten or more percent of interest in the company, with data on the percentage. If the company fails to do so within 15 days following a written warning, it will be considered to have stopped performing media functions on a temporary basis. A
ZAGREB, March 3 (Hina) - Under recently moved amendments to the
public media law, in the future the owners of Croatia's media should
be known to the public.
Quoting Council of Europe recommendations to the effect that the
ownership and business of the media must be known to the public to
prevent monopoly, the sponsor of the amendments, the Croatian
Social Liberal Party (HSLS), believes the current law's provisions
enable the real owners of the media to avoid reporting ownership.
HSLS has suggested that all media should submit to the competent
state body by Jan. 31 each year data on the company and its premises,
namely the names and places of residence of people with ten or more
percent of interest in the company, with data on the percentage.
If the company fails to do so within 15 days following a written
warning, it will be considered to have stopped performing media
functions on a temporary basis. A decision to this effect would be
made by the competent state body, become effective on the day of its
adoption, and be valid until the company complied with its duty.
The HSLS believes this is an effective control instrument, but has
suggested an alternate solution due to possible objections, namely
fines ranging from 100,000 to 400,000 kuna for companies and
30,000-80,000 for responsible people in companies. If the
responsible party submitted incorrect data, they would be subject
to investigation to establish criminal liability.
The HSLS has also pointed out that most Croatian media have no
statute, owing to vague provisions of the current media law,
therefore suggesting that if the statute is not adopted by the
publisher and journalists' representative, it should be done by an
arbitrating commission comprising representatives of the
Association of Publishers and the Croatian Journalists' Society.
The deadline for adopting the statute would be three months after
reception of request, which may be submitted by both the publisher
and the journalists' representative. The arbitrating commission
would be chaired by a representative of the state media
administration body.
According to the HSLS, this would oblige all media to have statutes,
which would increase the freedom of the press and have a positive
effect on the independence of the editorial policy and the rights of
journalists.
(hina) ha