The Media Advocacy Coalition expresses its concern about the planned amendments to the Law on Broadcasting, which will substantially change the financing mechanism of the Public Broadcaster. These changes directly threaten the independence and impartiality of the Public Broadcaster and undermine the prospect of it becoming truly free from state authorities and political influence.
In the first reading, the Georgian Parliament supported the amendments to the Law on Broadcasting, which change the way the Public Broadcaster is financed. In particular, the current funding model, which links the amount of funding to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and stipulates that the Public Broadcaster’s budget should not be less than 0.14% of the previous year’s GDP, will be abolished. The new bill stipulates that the Public Broadcaster should be financed from the state budget. The amount of the broadcaster’s budget should not be less than that of the previous year, unless the Board of Trustees of the Public Broadcaster agrees. The Law should enter into force on 1 January 2024 and the Government should ensure that the provisions of the amendments are reflected in the draft Law of Georgia “On the State Budget of Georgia for 2024”.
The employees of the Public Broadcaster wrote an open letter to the Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia, asking him to meet with the employees of the Broadcaster and hear their opinions before adopting the law. According to them, the proposed changes are not in line with the funding model of any public broadcaster in Europe.
Public broadcasting should play a vital role in a healthy democracy, serving to disseminate diverse opinions and views and to ensure the accountability of the government, political forces and other influential actors to the public. The Georgian Constitution guarantees the independence of the public broadcaster “… from state authorities and freedom from political and significant commercial influence”.
On the contrary, the proposed amendments will undermine the legal guarantees of the public broadcaster’s financial independence, weaken public confidence in it and increase the government’s ability to influence its editorial policy. This amendment destroys the prospect of independence and impartiality of the public broadcaster. The Recommendation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (1878 (2009)) clearly states that public service broadcasters should be independent of government and be able to operate without political interference. Therefore, the Assembly stresses that the financing model of public service broadcasters should reflect the required independence.
As reported by the Georgian Public Broadcaster, the President of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Noel Curran, criticised the bill, saying it would “lead to the destruction of the public broadcasting system”.
In recent years we have seen many examples of attempts to discredit or suppress the idea of PublicBroadcaster. In particular, the Adjara Television case, which ended with the dissolution of the public TV channel’s advisory board, did irreparable damage to public broadcaster.
Against the background that Georgia is on the path of European integration and the legislation regulating media activities is being harmonised with it along with other norms, it is alarming that the Parliament mullsmaking such a change in the financing rules of the public broadcaster, which does not correspond to the spirit of European integration.
The Media Advocacy Coalition calls on the ruling Georgian Dream party and other political forces not to support the proposed changes and not to seek structural subordination of the public broadcaster to the government, but to use their own mandate to increase the accountability and independence of the broadcaster.
If the draft law is adopted in its current form, the members of the Media Advocacy Coalition will consider filing an appeal with the Constitutional Court of Georgia, as we believe that the proposed amendments violate the financial independence of the broadcaster, which is guaranteed by the Constitution of Georgia.
