Article 66 of the Broadcasting Code will be amended after promulgation by the Head of State of the Law challenged by Civil Society

The Decree of President Nicolae Timofti on the promulgation of the Law amending and supplementing Article 66 of the Broadcasting Code of the Republic of Moldova no. 260-XVI of 27th of July 2006 will be published in the Official Journal on Friday, 6th of May 2016. Thus, the Head of State did not take into consideration the request of one of the legislative act’s authors and of the civil society not to promulgate the law.
 
According to the amendments proposed by a group of Socialist deputies - Vladimir Ţurcan, Eduard Smirnov, Grigore Novac, Adrian Lebedinschi - Article 66 of the Broadcasting Code in force will be worded as follows: “in paragraph (3), the word “five” shall be replaced with the word “two”, and the end shall be supplemented with the words “and may be the majority shareholder in not more than two broadcasters”. Paragraph 4 will be abrogated. However, the broadcasting licenses issued before the entry into force of this law will remain valid until the expiry of their validity, but after this term, the owners who are beneficiaries of private broadcasters will be compelled to bring the legal status of their ownership in broadcasting field in accordance with Article 66, paragraph 3 of the Broadcasting Code of the Republic of Moldova.

To note that after the law was passed by the Parliament, one of its authors, Adrian Lebedinschi, withdrew his signature and urged the Speaker Andrian Candu and the President Nicolae Timofti not to sign the document.

On the other hand, on 4th of March, a number of NGO-s addressed a declaration to President Nicolae Timofti, condemning the lack of transparency and the violation of legislative procedures for the adoption of this law on 26th of February 2016. In the framework of a public debate organized by the Centre for independent Journalism on 19th of April, the representatives of media NGO-s requested a meeting with Nicolae Timofti before the promulgation of the law under consideration.

The mass-media organizations consider that these amendments to the Code in force are in fact attempts of the governance to mimic the reforms and to protect the private interests of certain media owners. Civil society advocates for the urgent adoption of a new Broadcasting Code, which would bring a modern vision in this area, in line with the international mass-media standards.