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Jurnal TV Litigates the Sanction Applied by the BC for the Opinions Expressed during “Secretele Puterii”, a Broadcast in Which Maia Sandu Took Part: “It Is Obviously Illegal”

29 July 2021
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Representatives of Jurnal TV channel have filed a preliminary application to the Broadcasting Council (BC), demanding to suspend its decision regarding the sanctions for non-compliance with the requirements on providing correct information in the program “Secretele Puterii”. The BC members rejected the media service provider’s request at the meeting held on July 28.
 
On July 21, the BC sanctioned Jurnal TV issuing a public warning for non-compliance with the requirements on providing correct information concerning a fact or event upon examining a petition filed to the Council by a citizen. The first part of the broadcast was attended by Maia Sandu, the country’s president, and the second one by Inga Grigoriu, the deputy from the Dignity and Truth Platform, and Dumitru Alaiba, the deputy from the Party of Action and Solidarity, via a messenger. According to the BC monitoring data, during the discussions with President Sandu, the host of the show titled “Secretele Puterii” focused upon inaction of the General Prosecutor’s Office and the general prosecutor regarding the businessman Veaceslav Platon; several accusations sounded, yet there were no replies from the persons concerned. Having examined the subject, most BC members concluded that the show host had not been insufficiently impartial.

The day after Jurnal TV was sanctioned the channel filed a preliminary application in which it stated that the BC’s decision was “obviously illegal, ungrounded, and issued in disregard of the procedure.” Jurnal TV representatives consider that the reasons for revoking this “illegal act” are sufficient, and the issuing authority is supposed to suspend the implementation of this “obviously illegal” act.

The BC lawyers consider that the broadcaster has failed to provide enough arguments to support the request to suspend the decision regarding the sanctions or present pertinent evidence demonstrating the obviously illegal nature of the administrative act and “proving that the implementation of the Council’s decision would cause any damage or affect its operation by providing relevant evidence.”

Therefore, the BC members unanimously rejected Jurnal TV’s preliminary application with the request to suspend the implementation of the Council’s decision of July 21.