Source: Danas
When it comes to the heated 'public debate' regarding the Information Law proposal, I thought it would be my responsibility to 'join' those who oppose this proposal. As a lawyer, my primary reasons for this decision were legal in character. Simply put, an array of measures and penalties contained in the initial proposal were directly opposed to certain clauses in the Constitution of Serbia and other relevant international documents.
The proposing party, possibly realizing the mistakes, gave up on some of the ideas such as the 'property census' or the injunction on transferring property rights to newspapers. Even after these changes, a clause which proposes a newspaper publishing ban for economic and financial reasons which is in no way rooted in Article 50 of the Constitution of Serbia which clearly states that 'a court of law can ban the dissemination of information and ideas in the media only if it is necessary in order to prevent a violent disruption of the current constitutional order or the territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia, in order to put an end to war propaganda and calls for direct violence, or in order to stop the spreading of racial, national, or religious hatred which leads to discrimination, hostility, and violence'. The basis for the aforementioned article in the current Information Law proposal also does not exist in Article 10 Section 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as in the Strasburg-based European Court for Human Rights practice.
There are legal reasons too, the value of which people easily understand even though they are not lawyers. I do not believe that, for example, the majority of citizens think it is logical that the current Information Law proposal suggests penalties higher than even the penalties outlined in the Criminal Code for offences that are similar in character.
However, there are people who show ‘understanding' for these clauses. They justify their positions by bringing up the fact that an end should be put to untruths, half-truths, and twisting of the truth in the media, which are negative and obviously-present phenomena and lead to the misinformation of the general public. This ‘agreement' with the strict penalties is interesting because these clauses on the misinformation of the general public cannot only apply exclusively and solely to journalists and the media.
When it comes to misinforming the general public, the issue of failure to disclose information, which the general population should know and has a right to know, comes to mind. It is ‘interesting' to note how this is ‘regulated' in the present Law on Confidential Information proposal. The proposal states that, for example, a journalist, or anyone else for that matter, could end up in jail for disclosing a ‘secret'. How high would the penalty be depends solely on the level of ‘secrecy' and certain other circumstances; however, in the worst-case scenario, the penalty could be up to 15 years of imprisonment. An interesting question comes to mind - what risks does a functionary take when he fails to disclose information to the general public which people are entitled to and need to know or as it is stated in the proposal ‘declares data confidential'? According to the proposal, he will only receive a monetary penalty ranging from 5 to 50 thousand dinars. He could receive the same penalty yet again if he continues declaring data confidential and fails to comply with the directives given by the Commissioner for Information to remove the confidentiality distinction. In any case, he would never be going to jail.
I am not sure if there is a ‘concept' behind all this; however, if there is one, I do not believe that following through with it would give the desired outcome. In all honesty, does anyone really believe that a normal situation in the media can be achieved by penalizing the ‘journalists' for misinforming the general public, while at the same time having more lenient penalties for the ‘political elite' which is breaking the law in a more-or-less the same manner?
