Who and whom should control: media - the government or vice versa?

Baku/14.12.21/Turan: On December 10, the parliament discussed the draft law "On Media" with the participation of about 70 representatives of the media and non-governmental organizations. A number of critical, independent journalists and experts were not invited to the discussions that day.

The bill has been developed since the spring of last year behind closed doors, without discussion with the participation of independent media and lawyers in the field of freedom of speech. The government plans to pass the law on January 1, 2022. What does the bill contain?

Media expert, lawyer Alesker Mammadli answered these and other questions  in  the "Difficult Question" program.

According to him, there was no need for a new law to provide legal regulation of the activities of the mass media. Since both in terms of content and from a technical point of view, the legislation covers all aspects of the activities of all types of media. It is obvious that the bill is aimed at licensing Internet media, ensuring regulation of the activities of journalists by the state.

According to Mammadli, our legislation already severely restricts the activities of journalists. “In particular, defamation entails criminal liability, although from the point of view of the European Court of Human Rights this is unacceptable,” he said.

According to the media expert, official statistics say that today approximately 70-80% of the country's population is covered by the Internet. And if we add the number of other users to this figure, it turns out that 7-8 million people use alternative platforms in one form or another.

“Because the bill concerning the Internet affects the interests of a huge number of people and therefore its development and discussion should have been broad enough. Moreover, if the talk is about  the media,  this directly concerns the right to freedom of expression, protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the draft law was developed without discussion with the participation of independent media and lawyers in the field of freedom of speech. Moreover, in violation of the law, the Media Development Agency and the Milli Majlis did not publish the bill on their web pages,” Mammadli said. Mammadli claims that the bill is contrary to the country's Constitution.

“Article 47 (Freedom of thought and speech) and Article 50 (Freedom of information) of the country's Basic Law, the Law on Freedom of Information, and the Law on Mass Media restrict government interference in the activities of journalists, while the bill is aimed at establishing strict control.

In addition, according to the expert, he arbitrarily expands the circle of media subjects, establishes restrictions for them not provided for in the Constitution. –0--