Summary
An independent body to regulate election broadcasts may be established.
Election Parts
Quotes
- Calls on member states to: provide the legal, political, financial, technical and other means necessary to ensure the independent functioning of broadcasting regulatory authorities, so as to remove risks of political or economic interference.
- Member states should ensure that there is an effective and manifest separation between the exercise of control of media and decisions making as regards to media content and the exercise of political authority or influence.
- Any public authority that exercises powers in the areas of broadcast or telecommunications regulation should be independent and adequately protected against interference, particularly of a political or economic nature.
- Public service broadcasting, whether run by public organisations or privately-owned companies, differs from broadcasting for purely commercial or political reasons because of its specific remit, which is essentially to operate independently of those holding economic and political power.
- Calls on member states to: provide the legal, political, financial, technical and other means necessary to ensure genuine editorial independence and institutional autonomy of public service broadcasting organisations, so as to remove any risk of political or economic interference.
- States should adopt specific measures to protect the editorial independence and operational autonomy of public service media by limiting the influence of the State. The supervisory and management boards of public service media should be able to operate in a fully independent manner and the rules governing their composition and appointment procedures should be transparent and contain adequate checks and balances to ensure their independence.
- International law provides that everyone is entitled to an effective remedy by a competent national tribunal for a violation of a fundamental right…There is good authority for the proposition that, where an administrative (as opposed to a judicial) remedy is the only remedy available, the agency that decides the complaint must be independent of the agency that is the subject of the complaint…The above precedents provide sound support for the contention that international law, bolstered by UN guidelines, requires establishment of a body to regulate election broadcasts that is independent of government as well as the media, and which is subject to judicial review.
- Regulation of the media to promote diversity, including governance of public media, is legitimate only if it is undertaken by a body which is protected against political and other forms of unwarranted interference, in accordance with international human rights standards.
- Any regulatory mechanisms, whether for electronic or print media, should be independent of all political parties and function at an arms-length relationship to Government; access to technology, newsprint, printing facilities and distribution points should only be regulated by the supply and demand of the free market.
- Broadcast regulators and governing bodies should be so constituted as to protect themselves against political and commercial interference.
- The Internet, at both the global and national levels, should be overseen only by bodies which are protected against government, political and commercial interference, just as freedom from such interference is already universally acknowledged in the area of the print and broadcast media.
- All public authorities which exercise formal regulatory powers over the media should be protected against interferences, particularly of a political or economic nature, including by an appointments process for members which is transparent, allows for public input and is not controlled by any particular political party.