September 30, 2024
Serbian Information and Telecommunications Minister Dejan Ristić has said that, to the best of his knowledge and despite the expiry of the legal deadline, a public call will not be announced for the election of new members of the Council of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media until the finalisation of the procedure to evaluate the constitutionality of the provisions of the Law on Electronic Media ordering the changing of the Council’s current composition.
Specifically, the Serbian National Assembly adopted the new law last November, following several months of negotiations between representatives of the Government of Serbia and the media community that also included the participation of representatives of the OECD and the European Union.
One of the legal amendments resulting from the lengthy negotiations and compromises relates to the changing of the composition of the REM Council, which was agreed to be conducted this November.
However, the National Assembly of Serbia didn’t launch the initiative to replace the members of the Council, despite being legally obliged to do so. In the meantime, the REM Council members – who have demonstrated on multiple previous occasions that they work in the service of the government and media tycoons who support that government – filed an initiative with the Constitutional Court calling for an evaluation of the constitutionality of the article of the law ordering their replacement.
This Constitutional Court process could last months, or even years.
The REM Council has been compromised many times in not being guided by the public interest in its decision-making process, but also in its failure to comply with the law. Apart from the media community, the replacement of members has also been demanded by opposition political parties, who consider them one of the reasons why conditions for holding elections in Serbia are not equal.
The current REM Council is also known for having extended the national broadcast licenses of the country’s largest pro-government commercial television stations, despite these stations being known for breaking the law, promoting violence in their programming and attacking critics of the government.
