On June 4 the Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport held parliamentary hearings on the theme “The Problems of Legislative Regulation of the Activity of the Mass Media Means As a Result of Constitutional Reforms.” Representatives of the bodies regulating the legislative field, public organizations were invited to the hearings.

Opening the parliamentary hearings the Chairperson of the Committee on NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Mrs Hranush Hakobyan first touched upon the constitutional reforms and the principles regarding the activity of the mass media. As a result of amendments, a new order of formation of the National Commission on Television and Radio was fixed, according to which it was an independent body, and that independence was provided by the formation of the two wings of power: the President of the Republic and the National Assembly. In Mrs Hakobyan’s opinion today the law on Television and Radio needs to be reviewed. She substantiated this conviction first by the circumstance that the Constitutional Court had already touched upon the above-mentioned law, recognizing invalid different articles in that law, as well as in the parts of the NA Rules of Procedure regarding the same problem. Besides that, the law was adopted in 2000, after that, serious events took place in the country, Armenia joined the Council of Europe, the Constitution had been changed, the public relations had been developed. The committee chairperson touched upon the PACE Resolution 1609, by which the order of the formation of the independent commission on Television and Radio was proposed to review. In the same context is the assignment of the President of Republic on regulating the issues mentioned in the PACE well-known resolution by laws and decisions of the government. Mrs Hakobyan proposed to touch upon the legislative gaps during the discussion, the competitive order of the formation of the independent body for providing diversity of freedom and independent, principle of self-proposal, and financial problems. In the Committee Chairperson’s words women are the majority of the best specialists in the information field, we should pay attention to their participation in the independent committee, as well as in different councils.

In the hearings the Chairman of the Public TV and Radio Company Council Mr Alexan Harutyunyan and the Chairman of the National Commission on Television and Radio Mr Grigor Amalyan gave speeches.

In Mr Harutyunyan’s opinion, the reason of the shortcomings and gaps of the electronic information field is not the law. In case of political will and desire we can have absolutely a different information field. Nevertheless, taking into account the present phase of the civil society’s formation, we should fix mechanisms, which will exclude or reach to minimum the shortcomings noticed during the last years. In this aspect, the chairman of the council sees necessity of urgent amendments to the law with bigger involvement dedicated to more prospective problems in future with the participation of European structures and local journalists’ organizations and concerned sides with the condition of holding debates. Mr Alexan Harutyunyan presented the format of the amendments, which should be urgently touched upon. He noted first the procedure of the formation of the national commission. The speaker noticed that the chairman and the deputy chairman of the regulating commission of the sphere were only considered to be the staff employees, the others – members of the commission working in the public service of the executive power. In Mr Harutyunyan’s opinion, in this case the independence becomes very conventional, therefore, certain mechanisms must be in order to have that body independent. He suggested that all 8 members of the commission had no right to be involved with other work, except the pedagogical one. The speaker also proposed to fix that not only the commission members, but also the persons connected with them could not have interests in the private electronic mass media. The competition procedure of the election of the commission members, according to the speaker, should refer to the President of the Republic and the members of the parliament to be appointed. Some principles would be fixed by law too. It should be specified who could be candidates and competitive commission members. This procedure, according to Mr Alexan Harutyunyan, should refer to the formation of the public TV and Radio Council, as well as the National Commission on the Television and Radio. The public and journalistic organizations should be involved in the competitions, which would be open. He also expressed the Europeans’ concern that the procedure of the commission’s formation was very politicized. The chairman of the council considered right that in the report being presented to parliament they would include not only information on financial means and programmes, but also on the number of broadcast time of the Public TV and Radio Company to the political forces during the year. They would also prepare to propose on having an institute of internal ombudsman in the Public TV and Radio Company, and they were already cooperating on this issue with European experts.

Mr Grigor Amalyan touched upon the principles, which he would like to see preserved while making the legislative amendment. Noting that the national commission was being formed by the two wings of the power Mr Amalyan highlighted the unity of the requirements being proposed to the candidates of the regulating commission member and proposed to fix it by law. Mr Amalyan was for applying the united principle in case of election of the competitive commission members. While amending the law the commission chairman would like the regularity of the appointments of the commission members to be reviewed in promoting the increase of the independence of the regulating body.

Mr Mesrop Harutyunyan, the representative of the National Press Club presented the considerations of the Yerevan Press Club, Journlists’ Union of Armenia, and Committee of Protection of Freedom of Speech. Welcoming the initiative of organizing hearings on this theme, he noticed that in cases when the cooperation of the civil society and power was constructive very good laws were created. Referring to the amendment of the law, Mr Mesrop Harutyunyan noticed that despite the editing of the Article 11 of the law in force, today it is regulating the period of campaigning only the elections. Consequently, that article needs to be revised again. Mr Harutyunyan considered as a main problem the procedure of the formation of the National Commission and Public TV and Radio Company. In his conviction the two bodies are not independent, and the problems start from here. The mentioned journalistic organizations proposed to make amendments in the NA Rules of Procedure and give opportunity the factions for the proposals to fill in the vacancies of the commission. Stemming from the constitutional reforms – by the amendments made to the law on Television and Radio, the norm of appointing 4 members of the commission in competitive order by the President of the Republic was removed. Today only the President is appointing again. Besides excluding this opportunity, Mr Mesrop Harutyunyan also proposed to fix by law the principle of self-proposal. In the procedure of the competition it was proposed to have the idea of public hearings when the results and opinions of public wide discussions would be taken into account and while filling in the vacancies of the commissions and during the licensing competitions. As in 2009 the deadlines of the license of several TV companies will be expired, they suggest clarifying the standards of the competitions in the law. Mr Mesrop Harutyunyan proposed four such standards, programmes of their own production, programmes of local production, technical and financial opportunities and professional preparedness of the staff. Still during the constitutional amendments the journalistic organizations asserted that the sphere should be regulating two bodies for private broadcasting and public broadcasting. There do not exist mechanisms in legislation, which will give opportunity to the National Commission on Television and Radio to control the public broadcasting.

During the question and answer session they touched upon issues concerning the TV advertisement, sponsorship, and broadcasting policy. The opposition MPs especially talked about the violations noticed by them during the elections.

In his final speech, touching upon the raised issues, Mr Alexan Harutyunyan made a proposal on meeting separately with political forces and holding more comprehensive debate.

Summarizing the hearings the committee chairman Mrs Hranush Hakobyan distinguished the issues, which should be at the center of attention while making legislative amendment. Expressing gratitude for concerned discussions he underlined that he would not like people to speak from different sides of the barrier. Finally, everybody wants one thing – to improve the social-political life and promote the development of the state.