CRO MEDIA LAW NOT FULLY CORRESPONDING TO EUROPEAN STANDARDS

ZAGREB, July 12 (Hina) - Some provisions of the Croatian Mass Media Law did not correspond to European standards, particularly the excessive protection of the politicians' reputation at the expense of the freedom of speech, media experts of the Council of Europe said in Zagreb on Friday. At the invitation of the Croatian government, the experts, led by the head of the media department at the administration for human rights, Lawrence Early, on Wednesday and Thursday discussed the Mass Media Law with its creators and representatives of the Croatian Journalists' Society, and on Friday with members of a Croatian delegation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and members of the Committee for the Constitution, Rule Book and Political System of the Parliament's Lower House. With these discussions Croatia is fulfilling one of its obligations for the protection of human rights and freedoms. The experts said the Mass Media Law excessively protected the reputation and privacy of people, particularly politicians, at the expense of the freedom of speech. They said the demand for compulsory insurance of the publisher in case of indemnity was totally unacceptable. The practice of Croatian public prosecutors to press charges against journalists for slandering certain top government officials was also contrary to European standards, delegation member Andrew Nicol told reporters after the meeting. The experts said that the last decision in determining the secrecy of data should not lie with the Croatian government, but with courts. The best protection of the individual and the public from the media lay in self-regulating mechanisms of the journalistic profession, that is in the journalistic codex and an independent institution which would gather journalists and publishers, and deal with ethical and professional issues of the media, the experts said. They will deliver a report to the Council of Europe proposing that Croatia change certain laws in order to reach European standards, and the Council will then forward the report to the Croatian parliament, which will decide whether to accept the recommendations or not. Vice president of the Croatian parliament, Zarko Domljan of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said the media situation in Croatia was chaotic and the media space too polluted. Answering a question by Ivan Milas, also of HDZ, whether Europe was performing an experiment in which they wanted to apply laws in Croatia which did not exist anywhere else, Early explained that it was not an experiment, but that their duty was to help Croatia achieve its goal, that is democracy. Anton Vujic of the Social Democratic Party said that in Croatia the problem of the freedom of the electronic media was bigger than that of the freedom of press, and that the opposition was dissatisfied with the Telecommunications Law as well. Drazen Budisa of the Croatian Social-Liberal Party said that there was little responsibility in Croatia, not just among journalists, but politicians as well, and warned that the Council of Europe would not help Croatia by constantly denying it admission. (hina) ha jn 121840 MET jul 96