Comments on Slovenian PSB Act Published

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) today published its analysis of the Radio and Television Corporation of Slovenia Act, which was passed on 20 October 2010. The Act will be the subject of a national referendum on 12 December 2010, in which the Slovenian public is being asked to either uphold it or call for it to be revised. The Act replaces a 2005 law adopted by the opposition party when it was in power, which was narrowly upheld in a referendum at that time.

"In many ways, the Act is a model piece of public broadcasting legislation," said Toby Mendel, Executive Director of CLD. "However, a key weakness is the unduly complex oversight regime, with different bodies having overlapping, almost competing roles. This is exacerbated by the fact that one of these bodies, the Supervisory Board, lacks adequate protection from political control."

The CLD analysis rejects many of the concerns raised by the opposition – including about the legal status of RTV Slovenia, obligations regarding minority programming and the status of employees as non-public servants – pointing out that these actually promote independence and the fulfilment of public service obligations.

On the other hand, the Comments do point to a number of more minor concerns with the Act, including:

· The rules for allocation of time to political parties, which give equal weight to all parties represented in the National Assembly, and two-thirds of this time to unrepresented parties.

· A number of rules which, while aimed at promoting independence, are unduly rigid.

· The need for greater protection against removal for members of the Council, the supreme governing body for RTV Slovenia.

The full set of Comments is available at: http://www.law-democracy.org/?page_id=77.

For further information, please contact:

Toby Mendel

Centre for Law and Democracy

email: toby@law-democracy.org

tel: +1 902 431-3688

Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia

Thursday, December 02, 2010